Jerez WSB: Baz storms to pole with new circuit record

An intense Tissot-Superpole second session has been won by Loris Baz (Kawasaki Racing Team) who claimed Pole Position today at Jerez. the young Frenchman will move off ahead of everyone else in the two Sunday races for the second time this year. Baz also recorded the new best lap of the track for the Superbike class in 1’40.298, beating the previous record by 0.322s.

Davide Giugliano (Ducati Superbike Team) and Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) will join Baz on the front row for the two 20 lap races tomorrow. The top-3 riders were awarded with the Tissot-Superpole trophies by 2011 Superbike World Champion Carlos Checa. Row two will see the Aprilia Racing duo of Marco Melandri and Sylvain Guintoli as well as Eugene Laverty (Voltcom Crescent Suzuki) who was 6th.

Alex Lowes crashed his Voltcom Crescent Suzuki at turn two in the final 30 seconds and will start 9th behind Chaz Davies (Ducati Superbike Team, 7th) and Leon Haslam (Pata Honda World Superbike, 8th), and ahead of other Pata Honda rider Jonathan Rea.

The accolade of being the fastest of the EVO qualifiers went to Sylvain Barrier (BMW Motorrad Italia) who will start tomorrow’s races from 12th on the grid despite falling at turn 6 with two minutes to go.

Superpole 1 was as equally exciting with Sylvain Barrier (BMW Motorrad Italia) posting an incredible lap of
1.41.768s, a time that would have put him 3rd overall on the pre-Superpole classification. Leon Haslam (Pata Honda World Superbike Team) also made it through to Superpole 2 with his fastest lap of the weekend where they joined the automatically seeded top ten riders after free practice.