MotorLand Aragon took the honours as the first round of the 2017 season for the European Superstock 1000 season, and the riders are already split by thousandths of a second in Spain.

Under the sunny skies, Michael Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Junior Team) took pole position with 1.52.245 in the closing seconds of the qualifying practise, ahead of Maximillian Scheib (Nuova M2 Racing), despite Scheib leading in the closing stages.

Marco Faccani (Althea BMW Racing Team) completes the front row, with a lap time of 1.52.626. Mike Jones (Aruba.it Racing – Junior Team) will sit behind his team-mate on the grid, starting from the front of the second row. With the top eight split by one second the STK1000 race is bound to be a close one, with inner team battles also being included in the battles. Pata Yamaha Official STK1000 Team-mates Roberto Tamburini and Florian Marino will start from fifth and sixth respectively, despite Tamburini crashing at turn two in the closing seven minutes of the session.

Toprak Razagtlioglu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) takes on the front of the third row, ahead of Illia Mykhalchyk (Triple M Racing), who are both just over a second off the pole position time of 1.52.245.

With over six competitive manufacturers and some stunning racing action promised at the Pirelli Aragon Round, anticipation builds ahead of the debut STK1000 race, at 15:15LY (+2 GMT).