Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes has taken his fourth Superpole the season at Donington Park (what is he going to do with all those Tissot watches?) after Sylvain Guintoli broke his run at Monza.
The Huddersfield man stopped the clock in the third stint in 1.
27.
716 and broke Carlos Checa’s previous hold on the fastest lap record (2011) by three tenths of a second, while Leon Haslam maintained his second spot he came very close to giving BMW their first ever Superpole as he was less than a tenth of second from the Kawasaki rider.
Marco Melandri will be on the front row in third with his BMW performing better on race tires than on qualifiers, which happened to several riders.
Max Biaggi managed to push out Silvain Guintoli from fourth in the final seconds of the session, but he’s suffering in the final two sectors of the track.
Next to Effenbert Liberty’s Guintoli will be Jonathan Rea who bettered his FP2 time by only three tenths, but it was enough to put him on the second row in sixth.
Leon Camier took 7th in his best qualifying session so far this season, and since Donington doesn’t have super long straights his less powerful Fixi Suzuki isn’t losing in top speed.
Jakub Smrz who shone all weekend long ended up in 8th and one second from Sykes, he’ll have to fix that final sector which slowed him down during the final stint.
For the first time in a year, Carlos Checa didn’t make it into SP3 and was 9th – his problem seemed to be at the Foggy Esses and he ran out of qualifying tires in the two previous stints, so he posted his best time on race tires which wasn’t enough to qualify on the two front rows.
Closing out the top ten was GoldBet’s BMW Ayrton Badovini ahead of team mate Michel Fabrizio who suffered a crash earlier in the day due to weakness in his arm (he underwent surgery before the start of the season) that came back with a vengeance with the cold temperatures at the English circuit, while Eugene Laverty was only 12th WSBK Donington Superpole results:1.
Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) Kawasaki ZX-10R 1′27.
7162.
Leon Haslam (BMW Motorrad Motorsport) BMW S1000 RR 1′27.
8643.
Marco Melandri (BMW Motorrad Motorsport) BMW S1000 RR 1′28.
1774.
Max Biaggi (Aprilia Racing Team) Aprilia RSV4 Factory 1′28.
3405.
Sylvain Guintoli (Team Effenbert Liberty Racing) Ducati 1098R 1′28.
4206.
Jonathan Rea (Honda World Superbike Team) Honda CBR1000RR 1′28.
5467.
Leon Camier (FIXI Crescent Suzuki) Suzuki GSX-R1000 1′28.
5518.
Jakub Smrz (Liberty Racing Team Effenbert) Ducati 1098R 1′28.
7859.
Carlos Checa (Althea Racing) Ducati 1098R 1′28.
49710.
Ayrton Badovini (BMW Motorrad Italia GoldBet) BMW S1000 RR 1′28.
61411.
Michel Fabrizio (BMW Motorrad Italia GoldBet) BMW S1000 RR 1′28.
68312.
Eugene Laverty (Aprilia Racing Team) Aprilia RSV4 Factory 1′29.
03213.
Davide Giugliano (Althea Racing) Ducati 1098R 1′29.
23614.
Niccolò Canepa (Red Devils Roma) Ducati 1098R 1′29.
31915.
Maxime Berger (Team Effenbert Liberty Racing) Ducati 1098R 1′29.
37116.
Chaz Davies (ParkinGO MTC Racing) Aprilia RSV4 Factory 1′29.
49317.
Hiroshi Aoyama (Honda World Superbike Team) Honda CBR1000RR 1′30.
00818.
Loris Baz (Kawasaki Racing Team) Kawasaki ZX-10R 1′30.
23719.
Peter Hickman (FIXI Crescent Suzuki) Suzuki GSX-R1000 1′30.
29620.
Lorenzo Zanetti (PATA Racing Team) Ducati 1098R 1′30.
40221.
Mark Aitchison (Grillini Progea Superbike Team) BMW S1000 RR 1′31.
10222.
Leandro Mercado (Team Pedercini) Kawasaki ZX-10R 1′31.
54023.
Gary Mason (Team Pedercini) Kawasaki ZX-10R 1′33.
103