Max Biaggi superpole man in SBK at Nürburgring

The World Superbike Championship has contested the superpole battle at the Nürburgring Circuit, where Max Biaggi set a lap time of 1:53.885 to start from first position on the German track.

Round one of Superpole was somewhat eventful, as David Salom went down and was unable to make the most of this new opportunity to run with the top riders, so he will start from 16th position, a real shame for the 44 who had been putting together some good practice sessions.

Also, we don’t know whether it was Salom’s crash or an off-track excursion, but the track was covered in gravel, so they had to red-flag the session to clean the affected area, delaying the battle for positions. In the end, the ones eliminated for this SP2 were Salom 16th, Canepa 15th, Hopkins 14th and Fabrizio 13th.

For their part, Davies moved on to the next phase as the fastest with a lap time of 1:54.609, while behind him were Baz 2nd, Melandri 3rd, Biaggi 4th, Zanetti 5th, Checa 6th, Sykes 7th, Rea 8th, Laverty 9th, Haslam 10th, Camier 11th and Giugliano 12th.

The second round left Tom Sykes as the fastest rider, the Kawasaki is flying again with a lap time of 1:53.927, followed by Melandri, Laverty, Checa, Rea, Biaggi, Baz and Giugliano. Meanwhile, Haslam, Zanetti, Davies and Giugliano were left out of the final big battle for superpole.

Also, with Haslam’s crash at the first corners, which left him with no chance of fighting for the remaining positions, luckily he seems to be fine, unlike Niccolò Canepa, who could not go out to fight for superpole after crashing in this morning’s session and fracturing his tibia.

The final round, the moment of truth, the superpole battle, was clearly dominated by Max Biaggi, who knows he cannot let Marco Melandri escape and has started his comeback with this excellent time in Germany, so it’s undoubtedly the best way to start closing the gap.

Behind them were Tom Sykes 2nd, who tried until the very end, but this time his Kawasaki couldn’t match the Aprilia; while Marco Melandri was 3rd, Eugene Laverty 4th, Jonathan Rea 5th, Checa 6th, Camier 7th and Baz 8th.

SBK Action.

Photo | WorldSBK