Emanuele Pastore will start on pole position for the first FIM Yamaha R3 BLU CRU World Cup Race of the weekend, as Round 3 got underway under the scorching Donington Park sunshine on Friday.
The lunchtime Superpole session was a frenetic affair, with riders battling it out for pole position. Italian Pastore came out on top with his final lap of the session, a 1’45.598s seeing him top the times by an impressive 0.226s ahead of Brazil’s Leonardo Marques and Angelo Mottola of Italy.
Championship leader Xarly Mendez of the Dominican Republic heads up row two in fourth, ahead of Japan’s Hinata Okada and the USA’s Chris Clark, who had topped the morning’s free practice session.
Riichi Takahira (Japan) leads row three ahead of Aymon Bocanegra (Brazil) and Salvatore Germano (Italy) with Mauro Gomez (Spain) rounding out the top ten.
The opening race of the weekend takes place at 10:20 local time, and can be watched live on the Yamaha Racing YouTube Channel here.
Emanuele Pastore said: “It was a bit of a hectic session but on the last lap I got good track position and pushed hard and was able to take pole position, so I am really happy. Thanks to my team for doing such a great job, and my family for all of their support. Tomorrow the race will be difficult, but the target is to win so we will try our best!”