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Aragon WSBK: Rea breaks lap record to claim pole

Kawasaki rider Jonathan Rea broke the Aragon lap record to claim pole position for the second of the two World Superbike rounds at the Spanish circuit.

Jonathan Rea, Kawasaki Racing Team

Jonathan Rea, Kawasaki Racing Team

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

After securing a clean sweep in practice, Michael Ruben Rinaldi also set the early pace in practice, his time of 1m49.639s putting him clear of Honda’s Alvaro Bautista at the top of the timesheets.

However, reigning champion Rea managed to displace Rinaldi with his very first flyer of 1m49.361s, which also happened to be the quickest lap of the weekend.

The Kawasaki rider returned on track for the final 10 minutes on qualifying tyres and blitzed the previous lap record, putting himself nearly a second clear of the rest of the field with a time of 1m48.767s.

Several of his rivals managed to improve on their final runs but none of them could break the 1m49s barrier, allowing Rea to take pole position at Aragon for the second weekend in a row.

Rinaldi eventually qualified second on the Go Eleven Ducati with a time of 1m49.012s, claiming his first front row start in WSBK, edging the factory Panigale V4 R of Scott Redding by just 0.005s.

Tom Sykes set a brilliant lap of 1m49.173s to put BMW on the second row of the grid in fourth, ahead of the Hondas of Bautista and Leon Haslam which enjoyed another strong qualifying result following a maiden podium finish with the new Fireblade in the previous round at Aragon.

Toprak Razgatlıoglu sat outside the top 10 after the first runs, but improved his time significantly in the second half of the session to take seventh on the grid for Yamaha, six tenths down on Rea’s pole time.

Chaz Davies qualified eighth in the second of the factory Ducatis, while Alex Lowes finished ninth fastest for Kawasaki after missing third practice this morning due to a stomach bug.

Rounding out the top 10 was Ten Kate Yamaha rider Loris Baz, who finished two spots ahead of works Yamaha rider Michael van der Mark.

Brixx Ducati rider Sylvain Barrier was seen finger-pointing at van der Mark as the two riders returned to the pits after qualifying. 

Qualifying results:

Cla # Rider Bike Time Gap
1 1 United Kingdom Jonathan Rea
Kawasaki 1'48.767
2 21 Italy Michael Ruben Rinaldi
Ducati 1'49.012 0.245
3 45 United Kingdom Scott Redding
Ducati 1'49.017 0.250
4 66 United Kingdom Tom Sykes
BMW 1'49.173 0.406
5 19 Spain Alvaro Bautista
Honda 1'49.217 0.450
6 91 United Kingdom Leon Haslam
Honda 1'49.332 0.565
7 54 Turkey Toprak Razgatlioglu
Yamaha 1'49.358 0.591
8 7 United Kingdom Chaz Davies
Ducati 1'49.396 0.629
9 22 United Kingdom Alex Lowes
Kawasaki 1'49.409 0.642
10 76 France Loris Baz
Yamaha 1'49.417 0.650
11 64 Italy Federico Caricasulo
Yamaha 1'49.638 0.871
12 60 Netherlands Michael van der Mark
Yamaha 1'49.671 0.904
13 77 Chile Maximilian Scheib
Kawasaki 1'49.790 1.023
14 31 United States Garrett Gerloff
Yamaha 1'49.920 1.153
15 12 Spain Xavi Fores
Kawasaki 1'50.044 1.277
16 50 Ireland Eugene Laverty
BMW 1'50.216 1.449
17 33 Italy Marco Melandri
Ducati 1'50.462 1.695
18 40 Spain Roman Ramos
Kawasaki 1'51.181 2.414
19 20 France Sylvain Barrier
Ducati 1'51.355 2.588
20 71 Italy Matteo Ferrari
Ducati 1'51.542 2.775
21 13 Japan Takumi Takahashi
Honda 1'51.883 3.116

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