Eugene Laverty leads the way in Friday qualifying at Aragon

Alcaniz (Spain), Friday 12 April 2013 - A close battle characterised the first qualifying session for the eni FIM Superbike World Championship at MotorLand Aragon, and saw Irishman Eugene Laverty (Aprilia Racing Team) topping the timesheets with a 1’58.548 set with few minutes to go.

“We worked quite a bit on the electronics today” explained Laverty “because I wasn't happy about it during free practice this morning, especially going into turns. There is still room for improvement but we're moving in the right direction, and our times show it. We just need to make our performance last longer race-wise. We'll see what happens tomorrow, the track will have more grip so we'll change our settings in order to be ready for Sunday”.

The Championship Leader was 0.104 second faster than 2nd place Chaz Davies (BMW Motorrad GoldBet), with Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) and Davies’ team mate, Marco Melandri, to follow.

“It was a good Friday, everyone has done a great job” said Davies. “We were able to confirm the success of the work we have done over the last month and today has proved that I now feel really comfortable on my RR. I was already happy with my pace at Phillip Island and I knew we could improve on it even more. We came here fresh and hungry and it was good. I did my fastest lap on used tyres, which is a good sign regarding race pace. The bike is working very well but the grip is still limiting us. In addition, we will just do some fine tuning of the electronics and the power delivery.”

Jonathan Rea (Pata Honda World Superbike Team) rode his CBR 1000 RR up to 5th position ahead of Phillip Island Race 1 winner Sylvain Guintoli (Aprilia Racing Team) and the unfortunate Leon Camier (FIXI Crescent Suzuki), who had a high-side at Turn 10 early in the session and was transferred first to the Medical Centre, where he was diagnosed with a left knee dislocation and a wound, then taken to the Alcaniz hospital, where he’s undergoing further examination. His participation to the rest of the round is seriously doubtful.

On the other hand, Jules Cluzel with the other GSX-R1000 bettered his morning’s performance and finished 8th, with Loris Baz (Kawasaki Racing Team) and Davide Giugliano (Althea Racing Aprilia) to complete the top-10. A bit of a step back for Spaniard Carlos Checa (Team Ducati Alstare), who was 12th behind Leon Haslam (Pata Honda World Superbike Team).

World Supersport - Lowes makes the difference in QP1 with a new best lap

A new Best Lap of the MotorLand Aragon for the series was set today by Sam Lowes (Yakhnich Motorsport Yamaha) in Qualifying 1. Despite not being 100% following last week's crash while testing here, the Brit lapped the 5344 m Spanish track in 2'01.930 and was 0.463 second faster than Sheridan Morais, who brought his PTR Honda machine into second place.

Rookie sensation Michael van der Mark (Pata Honda World Supersport) was third, ahead of Reigning Champion Kenan Sofuoglu (Mahi Racing Team India Kawasaki), Italy's Luca Scassa (Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres) and DMC Lorenzini Kawasaki duo of Kev Coghlan and Vladimir Ivanov.

Supersport veteran Fabien Foret (Mahi Racing Team India Kawasaki) ended up in 8th place, followed by Russian Vladimir Leonov (Yakhnich Motorsport Yamaha) and Florian Marino, who made his comeback to the series by replacing injured David Salom in the Intermoto Ponyexpres Team.

An unlucky QP1 for WSS rookies Nacho Calero (Honda PTR) and Riccardo Russo (San Carlo Team Italia), both crashed within the first 20 minutes on track. 2007 125cc World Champion Gabor Talmacsi (Prorace Honda) and South Africa's Mathew Scholtz (Suriano Racing Team) did the same as well, later on in the session.

FIM Superbike World Championship