Aragon WSBK: Rea breaks lap record to claim pole

After securing a clean sweep in practice, Michael Ruben Rinaldi also set the early pace in practice, his time of 1m49.639s putting him clear of Honda’s Alvaro Bautista at the top of the timesheets.

However, reigning champion Rea managed to displace Rinaldi with his very first flyer of 1m49.361s, which also happened to be the quickest lap of the weekend.

The Kawasaki rider returned on track for the final 10 minutes on qualifying tyres and blitzed the previous lap record, putting himself nearly a second clear of the rest of the field with a time of 1m48.767s.

Several of his rivals managed to improve on their final runs but none of them could break the 1m49s barrier, allowing Rea to take pole position at Aragon for the second weekend in a row.

Rinaldi eventually qualified second on the Go Eleven Ducati with a time of 1m49.012s, claiming his first front row start in WSBK, edging the factory Panigale V4 R of Scott Redding by just 0.005s.

Tom Sykes set a brilliant lap of 1m49.173s to put BMW on the second row of the grid in fourth, ahead of the Hondas of Bautista and Leon Haslam which enjoyed another strong qualifying result following a maiden podium finish with the new Fireblade in the previous round at Aragon.

Toprak Razgatlıoglu sat outside the top 10 after the first runs, but improved his time significantly in the second half of the session to take seventh on the grid for Yamaha, six tenths down on Rea’s pole time.

Chaz Davies qualified eighth in the second of the factory Ducatis, while Alex Lowes finished ninth fastest for Kawasaki after missing third practice this morning due to a stomach bug.

Rounding out the top 10 was Ten Kate Yamaha rider Loris Baz, who finished two spots ahead of works Yamaha rider Michael van der Mark.

Brixx Ducati rider Sylvain Barrier was seen finger-pointing at van der Mark as the two riders returned to the pits after qualifying. 

Qualifying results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	1	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	1'48.767
2	21	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	Ducati	1'49.012	0.245
3	45	Scott Redding	Ducati	1'49.017	0.250
4	66	Tom Sykes	BMW	1'49.173	0.406
5	19	Alvaro Bautista	Honda	1'49.217	0.450
6	91	Leon Haslam	Honda	1'49.332	0.565
7	54	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Yamaha	1'49.358	0.591
8	7	Chaz Davies	Ducati	1'49.396	0.629
9	22	Alex Lowes	Kawasaki	1'49.409	0.642
10	76	Loris Baz	Yamaha	1'49.417	0.650
11	64	Federico Caricasulo	Yamaha	1'49.638	0.871
12	60	Michael van der Mark	Yamaha	1'49.671	0.904
13	77	Maximilian Scheib	Kawasaki	1'49.790	1.023
14	31	Garrett Gerloff	Yamaha	1'49.920	1.153
15	12	Xavi Fores	Kawasaki	1'50.044	1.277
16	50	Eugene Laverty	BMW	1'50.216	1.449
17	33	Marco Melandri	Ducati	1'50.462	1.695
18	40	Roman Ramos	Kawasaki	1'51.181	2.414
19	20	Sylvain Barrier	Ducati	1'51.355	2.588
20	71	Matteo Ferrari	Ducati	1'51.542	2.775
21	13	Takumi Takahashi	Honda	1'51.883	3.116
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