Buriram WSBK: Rea takes pole by 0.003s
Jonathan Rea snatched World Superbike pole position from Kawasaki teammate Tom Sykes by just 0.003 seconds at Buriram, while Leon Camier put the Honda third.
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Friday's fastest man Rea set the initial benchmark in SP2 with a 1m33.936s, and regained the top spot from Camier on his follow-up lap of 1m33.756s.
At the end of the race tyre runs, Rea had been shuffled back to fifth as Yamaha's Alex Lowes, Sykes, Marco Melandri on the Ducati, and finally MV Agusta's Jordi Torres deposed the Northern Irishman.
Torres was the first to post a lap on the qualifying tyre in the closing stages, though the MV rider's 1m32.972s was quickly bettered by a 1m32.922s from Camier, the Honda rider dipping underneath the lap record.
Sykes edged ahead with a 1m32.817s and was on a quicker lap on his final attempt, but backed off through the second sector.
Meanwhile, Rea was lighting up the timing screens on the second factory ZX-10RR, and secured his 15th WSBK pole with a 1m32.814s.
Torres was cut half a tenth a drift of Camier to head the second row in fourth spot, with Barni Racing's Xavi Fores heading Lowes in fifth.
Melandri was forced to settle for seventh on the first of the Aruba Ducatis after a late fall at Turn 9, with Eugene Laverty between the Italian and Chaz Davies.
Michael van der Mark completed the top 10 on the sister Yamaha ahead of SP1 graduates Lorenzo Savadori and Toprak Razgatlioglu.
Leandro Mercado's will start his first race at Buriram since 2015 from 13th, after the Orelac rider was shoved out of the top top two at the death of the first 15-minutes session.
Honda's Jake Gagne was the early pacesetter in SP1, and was set to post a laptime good enough to secure safe passage into the pole shootout session.
However, a highside exiting Turn 6 on his final effort ended his hopes of progressing; the American will instead line up 14th ahead of Althea BMW's Loris Baz.
SP2 results:
Pos. | No. | Rider | Bike | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Jonathan Rea | Kawasaki | 1'32.814 | |
2 | 66 | Tom Sykes | Kawasaki | 1'32.817 | 0.003 |
3 | 2 | Leon Camier | Honda | 1'32.922 | 0.108 |
4 | 81 | Jordi Torres | MV Agusta | 1'32.972 | 0.158 |
5 | 12 | Xavi Fores | Ducati | 1'33.022 | 0.208 |
6 | 22 | Alex Lowes | Yamaha | 1'33.036 | 0.222 |
7 | 33 | Marco Melandri | Ducati | 1'33.103 | 0.289 |
8 | 50 | Eugene Laverty | Aprilia | 1'33.119 | 0.305 |
9 | 7 | Chaz Davies | Ducati | 1'33.148 | 0.334 |
10 | 60 | Michael van der Mark | Yamaha | 1'33.373 | 0.559 |
11 | 32 | Lorenzo Savadori | Aprilia | 1'33.450 | 0.636 |
12 | 54 | Toprak Razgatlioglu | Kawasaki | 1'34.570 | 1.756 |
SP1 results:
Pos. | No. | Rider | Bike | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
SP2 | 32 | Lorenzo Savadori | Aprilia | 1'33.956 | |
SP2 | 54 | Toprak Razgatlioglu | Kawasaki | 1'34.035 | 0.079 |
13 | 36 | Leandro Mercado | Kawasaki | 1'34.271 | 0.315 |
14 | 45 | Jake Gagne | Honda | 1'34.404 | 0.448 |
15 | 76 | Loris Baz | BMW | 1'34.477 | 0.521 |
16 | 40 | Roman Ramos | Kawasaki | 1'34.729 | 0.773 |
17 | 99 | Patrick Jacobsen | Honda | 1'34.782 | 0.826 |
18 | 68 | Yonny Hernandez | Kawasaki | 1'34.783 | 0.827 |
19 | 37 | Ondrej Jezek | Yamaha | 1'35.925 | 1.969 |
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments