Laverty takes SBK Superpole at Silverstone, in a crazy session with Checa 2nd

The World Superbike Championship has fought its superpole battle at the Silverstone Circuit, in some of the most interesting runs, where we have seen the 15 best riders battling for the grid positions for tomorrow’s races on the British track.

The SP1 was extremely intense, with Jules Cluzel setting the best lap of the run at 2:04.498. Suzuki appears to have fitted his softest tyre to fight for a good position, leaving his closest chaser, Davies, 0.159s behind. Although the run began with bad news for BMW, as Marco Melandri had to stop with mechanical problems, leaving him out of contention and qualifying 15th for the races.

In this first SP manga, Cluzel finished 1st, Davies 2nd, Giugliano 3rd, Sykes 4th, Laverty 5th, Baz 6th, Checa 7th, Camier 8th, Neukirchner 9th, Guintoli 10th, Rea 11th and Haslam 12th. Eliminated from the next round were Badovini in 13th, Fabrizio in 14th and Melandri in 15th.

Then came the moment of SP2, with Loris Baz, who is strong at this circuit and has very good memories of last season, setting a time of 2:04.063 and leaving his teammate Tom Sykes 0.116s behind, with Guintoli 3rd, Laverty 4th, Camier 5th, Rea 6th, Checa 7th, Davies 8th and Giugliano 9th. The Italian suffered a crash in the final moments, and it is unlikely that the 34 will be able to take part in SP3 despite having entered the session. Eliminated from SP3 were Cluzel 10th, Neukirchner 11th and Haslam 12th.

And finally the big moment arrived, the final Superpole with Loris Baz being the first to push hard and lower the record set by John Hopkins, but his teammate Tom Sykes went out after and managed to lower the time to 2:03.362, setting the best time and what seemed like his seventh superpole. However, just a second later, a red flag was shown due to rain, and the organisers decided to CANCEL the SP3 run and hold a 20-minute superpole in the wet.

In these 20 minutes of wet pole, Loris Baz was the best with a time of 2:05.105. The Frenchman took advantage and went out first to try to set an important time before track conditions worsened, achieving an interesting lap and claiming his first pole position of the season and of his racing career. The session began in relatively “dry” conditions, but with about 15 minutes remaining it started to rain harder, and all riders came into the pits. It became clear that nobody could beat the time of number 76 if the rain continued. This caused considerable frustration for number 66, Sykes, who had just been running well on track, and who was held up by the organisation and the rain. The track was in “mixed” conditions and nobody wanted to risk a crash.

But suddenly, with 5 minutes left, conditions improved and all riders went out to fight for pole position, with scares, riders on the red, improving times, riders glued to wheels, everything in a frenzy decided by just one set of tyres and one lap. In this situation Eugene Laverty was the best, setting a time of 2:04.730 and recording his first SBK pole, leaving behind our dear Carlos Checa, who flew at Silverstone.

The top 9 was completed with Rea 3rd, Baz 4th, Sykes 5th, Davies 6th, Camier 7th, Guintoli 8th and Giugliano 9th. More tomorrow in the race.

Photo | WorldSBK and teams