Superpole Jerez: "Major Tom" Sykes passes the six

Tom Sykes flew over the Superpole event in Jerez this morning. The n ° 66 Ninja signs an impressive sixth pole this year, relegating his teammate Rea (2nd) to four tenths of a second! Giugliano completes the first row, Guintoli closes the third.

The delicate conditions endured at Magny-Cours are only a distant and bad memory: since the opening of hostilities on Friday morning in Jerez, the World Superbike riders have been riding under a great blue sky and on a perfectly dry track. !

First driver to come out of the pits in the final phase of the Superpole (as a reminder, SP2 brings together the ten best times of Friday and the two drafted from SP1 organized a few minutes earlier), Jonathan Rea signs the reference time on racing tires and return to the pits immediately.

Thanks to his warm-up in SP1, Jordi Torres finished the first part of SP2 in second position ahead of Chaz Davies, Michael van den Mark and Tom Sykes. Our representative in Superbike, the 2014 champion Sylvain Guintoli, points to an unsatisfactory 10th place…

Anthony West was the first to complete a qualifying lap and improved his time by half a second, reaching provisional 6th place in SP2 … Moments later, Nicky Hayden and VDM dislodged Rea from first place , then Torres is inserted between the two Honda. But Sykes finally sets the record straight….

At the controls of his green rocket, "Major Tom" travels the 4423 meters of the Andalusian circuit in 1 ‘39.190: the English Ninja is only a short half a second from the pole position signed this year in MotoGP by Valentino Rossi Himself (1 ‘38.736) and could claim fourth place on the grid of the Grand Prix of Spain !

More importantly, Sykes takes a certain ascendancy over his teammate Rea which he beats by four tenths of a second. Unfortunately for Tom, the gaps on the starting grid are not proportional to those seen on the timesheet (that could be interesting, right?).

Even more worrying for "Mister Superpole": his teammate, "the ruthless JR", is always better in the race than in qualifying. The reigning world champion may be tough this afternoon in the first round! Jonathan cannot be titled today, but a victory would allow him to approach his second hand of the World Cup … which he already holds firmly to the first !

Always very swift in Superpole, Davide Giugliano returns to Jerez in the foreground: injured in the shoulder during the German event, the Roman driver believes that he will go the distance in the race, but may not be able to attack his little comrades as he would like.

The second row of the Spanish grid brings together beautiful people since it will be made up of the 2013 English Superbike champion Alex Lowes on his Yamaha R1, the 2016 MotoGP world champion Nicky Hayden on his Honda Fireblade and the 2011 Superport world champion Chaz Davies on his Ducati 1199 Panigale.

The two local drivers Jordi Torres and Xavi Fores finish SP2 at the same pace as "Chazie" – Jordi is also credited with the same time, see the sheet at the bottom of the article – and will start from third place, completed by our compatriot Sylvain Guintoli (n ° 50 of the Yamaha Pata Crescent team).

Note that at the end of this SP2, Van den Mark, eleventh fastest time behind Leon Camier and ahead of Anthony West, equaled the previous WSBK track record held by Tom Sykes – who else? – in 1 ‘40.291. Proof if needed, that the level continues to rise in Superbike !

At the end of the first series of laps in SP1, Jordi Torres and Lorenzo Savadori occupied the first two places. But Anthony West, Marcus Reiterberger and Alex de Angelis were less than a tenth of a second away from qualifying in SP2 !

Finally, West set the second fastest time behind the "Spanish Elvis", a minute before the checkered flag was waved in the short straight. Third in the session, Reiterberger will lead just now – and tomorrow for the second round – the fifth row, completed by Lorenzo Savadori and Roman Ramos.

The second Aprilia IodaRacing, driven by Alex de Angelis, will be installed in front of Josh Brookes’ first BMW Milwaukee and Fabio Menghi’s unique Ducati VFT, still replaced by Luca Scassa. To conclude, we would like to mention the participation of our compatriot Matthieu Lussiana in this last European event. The Brazilian champion qualified – good! – last on the grid.

Superpole World Superbike Jerez 2016

 

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