Rea smashes lap record for first pole of 2017
Reigning World Superbike champion Jonathan Rea smashed the Phillip Island qualifying record to take the first pole of 2017, narrowly beating Kawasaki team-mate Tom Sykes.
Rea has been in good form all weekend on the ZX-10RR, and made no secret of his intentions from the off in Superpole 2 by topping the time sheets with a 1m30.6s from Barni Racing’s Xavi Fores and WorldSBK returnee Marco Melandri on the Ducati early on.
Once on qualifying rubber, the two KRT riders were on superb pace. Superpole king Tom Sykes looked set to add to his tally with a 1m29.605s, but was pipped by just three hundredths by his team-mate.
Melandri starts his first WorldSBK race in two years from the back of the front row after an impressive effort of 1m29.734s, with the sister Aruba.it Panigale R of Chaz Davies a tenth adrift in fourth.
Yamaha’s Alex Lowes will start a decent fifth ahead of Milwaukee Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori and Althea BMW’s Jordi Torres. They’ll have their hands full in race one, however, with Fores starting an out-of-position eighth after sliding off at the Turn 10 hairpin on his flying lap.
MV Agusta’s Leon Camier has endured a nightmare weekend, with his running on Friday limited to just six laps thanks to a mechanical issue.
But the Briton was nonetheless pleased with the performance of the F4, and was able to sail through SP1 to go onto qualify ninth ahead of Michael van der Mark on the second Pata R1.
Nicky Hayden took the new Fireblade to a respectable 11th on a 1m30.895s ahead of sister Althea S1000RR of Markus Reiterberger.
Eugene Laverty fell out of contention for a place in SP2 early on when he crashed at the Southern Loop, suffering a broken handlebar. Though his initial 1m31.372s kept him second, he could do nothing but watch van der Mark demote him.
The Northern Irishman heads row five, with debutantes Randy Krummenacher on the Puccetti Kawasaki and Honda’s Stefan Bradl for company.
Wildcard Josh Brooke will start from an impressive 16th on his ERMotorsport 2015 British Superbike-spec Yamaha having missed out on a place in the second part of qualifying by just over half a second.
The opening round of the 2017 WorldSBK season gets under way at 15:00 (GMT+11).