Melandri flies his BMW to the top in Q1
Home star Marco Melandri (BMW Motorrad GoldBet) took the best out of the powerful BMW S 1000 RR to storm to first place with a lap-time of 1'42.883, followed by a revived Jonathan Rea (Pata Honda World Superbike) and an always consistent Sylvain Guintoli (Aprilia Racing Team), who set an incredible top-speed of 333,6 km/h. The four-brand top-4 was completed by Kawasaki Racing Team Ninja ZX-10R of Tom Sykes, who lapped almost identically to the current Championship leader (0.011 seconds gap between 3rd and 4th place).
The 'well-known' top-speed performance of the RSV4 was also displayed by 6th place Michel Fabrizio (Red Devils Roma Aprilia), who recorded 331 km/h at the speed trap (matching Melandri's), but was preceded by another private Aprilia rider, the fellow Roman Davide Giugliano (Althea Racing) and followed by works rider of Noale's manufacturer Eugene Laverty.
BMW's mixed day saw Chaz Davies' spectacular crash at Turn 10, that almost destroyed his bike.