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Perfect lap for Rea to Q1 lead

Friday, 7 June 2013 16:42 GMT
Perfect lap for Rea to Q1 lead

Close competition was the key factor of today's Qualifying 1 for the eni FIM Superbike World Championship. Under dry track conditions and good temperatures throughout all 45 minutes available the top-10 riders were - in the end - all within a second of each other. Ulsterman Jonathan Rea (Pata Honda World Superbike) stormed to the top in the final stages to secure 1st place for just 52 thousands of a second over Eugene Laverty (Aprilia Racing Team) and 0.097 seconds on the "King of Donington" Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team).


Factory Aprilia rider Sylvain Guintoli rode to a final 4th place followed by Davide Giugliano (Althea Racing Aprilia) and works BMW duo of Marco Melandri and Chaz Davies. Carlos Checa (Team Ducati Alstare) showed some good signs of recovery - after the unfortunate but almost inevitable withdrawal from Race 2 in the previous round - to end up 8th ahead of Leon Camier (FIXI Crescent Suzuki), Loris Baz (Kawasaki Racing Team) and Ayrton Badovini (Team Ducati Alstare).


French WSBK rookie Jules Cluzel (12th) lost control of his FIXI Crescent Suzuki GSX-R1000 for a seemingly innocent crash at Turn 3 with few minutes left on the clock. It was again a tough ride for 13th place Leon Haslam (Pata Honda World Superbike), still dealing with the difficult left leg injury that is heavily affecting his performance.


No time set for Michel Fabrizio (Red Devils Roma Aprilia) as the rider from Rome was stopped twice by technical problems on his RSV4.