News

Torres leads field into Tissot-Superpole by 0.029s

Saturday, 19 September 2015 08:39 GMT

    • Tissot-Superpole qualifiers decided after FP3 shakes things up.

    As predicted this morning’s FP3 session has decided the participants for this afternoon’s Tissot-Superpole as the cooler track temperatures saw a flurry of faster times, resulting in one of the closest sessions of the season – the top 14 riders covered by 0.816s.

    Within the first 6 minutes of the session the top 4 riders had all improved on their best efforts of yesterday with overnight fastest rider Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) stretching the advantage over his rivals and by the end of the 45 minutes all of the top 17 had improved.

    At the flag and after 2 very lively laps local rider Jordi Torres powered his Aprilia Racing Team – Red Devils machine to the top, his lap time of 1.41.405s edging yesterday’s leading rider Tom Sykes by 0.029s he will therefore lead the riders into qualifying this afternoon.

    Behind Torres and Sykes, Leon Haslam on the second Aprilia moved into 3rd and could have been higher had it not been for a crash in the final minute. The British rider was unhurt.

    Matteo Baiocco continued the strong weekend so far for Althea Racing by jumping to 4th ahead of Aruba.it Racing – Ducati SBK Team riders Michele Pirro and Chaz Davies who were 5th and 6th respectively.

    Alex Lowes was 7th for Voltcom Crescent Suzuki with Niccolo Canepa (Althea Racing), champion in waiting Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) and Sylvain Guintoli (Pata Honda World Superbike Team) rounding out the top 10.

    Just missing out on a guaranteed Superpole 2 start was Leandro Mercado (Barni Racing) in 11th, he will join the other riders placed to 20th for Superpole 1.

    12th to 15th respectively were Michael van der Mark (Pata Honda World Superbike Team), David Salom (Team Pedercini), Leon Camier (MV Agusta Reparto Corse), and Randy de Puniet on the second Voltcom Crescent Suzuki.

    The final rider to make it into Superpole 1 was Gianluca Vizziello (Grillini SBK Team) who took 20th position overall after overcoming some technical problems yesterday, the Italian was just behing Hungarian Gabor Rizmayer who had an encouraging session aboard his Team Toth BMW in 19th.

    Tissot-Superpole begins with SP1 at 1500 local time with SP2, which will decide the top 12 positions on the grid beginning at 1525 local time.

    Remember that you can follow all of the action on Twitter: @WorldSBK