Tom Sykes annihilated the Lausitzring lap record to claim pole position for the first race of the German World Superbike round later today.
Sykes has been in imperious form all weekend, topping Friday’s timesheets despite a crash in second practice, and ending final practice this morning as the man to beat.
Milwaukee Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty laid the gauntlet as the second part of Superpole got underway, the Northern Irishman popping in a record-breaking 1m36.854s on race rubber.
He was quickly demoted by Marco Melandri, the Ducati rider edging a couple of hundredths clear with a 1m36.827s.
It was the Italian’s team-mate Chaz Davies who shot to the top of the timesheets on the first qualifying tyre run, last year’s race one winner only marginally quicker than Melandri with a 1m36.761s.
Melandri recovered top spot on his first qualifying tyre lap, but it was birthday boy Sykes who set the timing screens ablaze with a 1m36.121s to claim his 42nd WorldSBK pole position, smashing the lap record from last year by an astonishing 1.7 seconds.
Kawasaki team-mate Jonathan Rea salvaged second at the chequered flag with a 1m36.334s, with the second Milwaukee Aprilia of Lorenzo Savadori completing the top three for the first time in qualifying this season.
Melandri was shuffled back to the head of the second row in the end, while Jordi Torres put in a fine effort to qualify fifth on his Althea BMW ahead of Davies.
Alex Lowes heads Laverty in seventh, with Leon Camier breaking the top 10 on his MV Agusta in ninth.
Markus Reiterberger will start his first race back in WorldSBK 10th on his customer S1000RR BMW, the German out-qualifying SP1 graduates Michael van der Mark and Xavie Fores.
Althea BMW’s Raffele De Rosa was set for promotion to SP2, but exceeded track limits on the inside of Turn 1 on his final flying lap and had his time cancelled, leaving the Italian stranded in 13th.
Leandro Mercado vied for an SP2 spot for the entirety of SP1, but his 1m38.456s was only good enough for 14th. Honda’s Stefan Bradl will line-up 15th having been declared fit to race after his heavy crash on Friday.
Ayrton Badovini stunned on the year-old ZX-10R, the Italian taking the Grillini machine to a season-best 16th on the grid ahead of the sister Red Bull Honda of WorldSBK returnee Davide Giugliano.
Ondrej Jezek put the second Grillini bike 18th on the grid, with Randy Krummenacher a disgruntled 19th after he was held up on a flying lap by a touring Riccardo Russo.
Roman Ramos, wildcard Pawel Szkopek, Russo and his Guandalini replacement Massimo Roccoli complete the field for this afternoon’s opening race.
