A lengthy, delay-hit Superpole session at Brno Circuit in the Czech Republic saw Marco Melandri and Leon Haslam qualifying on the second row in fifth and seventh places respectively, for tomorrow’s two races.

It was a long, drawn-out Superpole session in challenging conditions that required the ultimate focus from both BMW Motorrad Motorsport riders to stay in contention for the all-important grid positions for Sunday’s races.

Melandri, who had been third fastest in combined qualifying, recovered from an earlier high-speed crash on his BMW S 1000 RR to set the fastest time in SP1. The 29-year-old was instantly fast and put the best time of 1:58.837 right at the beginning of SP1 before returning to the pits to watch his rivals try to beat this for the remainder of the session. This time was untouched by anyone else and Melandri went through to SP2 as the quickest rider, with BMW Motorrad Italia Goldbet’s Michel Fabrizio in fourth, closely followed by Ayrton Badovini in sixth, with Melandri’s team-mate Leon Haslam safely making the cut in 11th position.

SP2 was red-flagged early in the session when another rider’s bike spilled fluid on the circuit, causing several riders to crash, including Badovini, whose RR was badly damaged in the incident. After a lengthy delay involving a careful clean-up operation by the circuit marshals, a warm-up session began in preparation for a shortened SP2. However, the appearance of drops of rain on parts of the circuit left the organisers no choice but to implement a Wet Superpole procedure, which would mean 20 minutes of qualifying time to determine the final 12 grid positions.

With the threat of rain ever present, all the riders rushed out on track with the aim to complete a series of decent early laps on race tyres or any remaining qualifying tyres. In the end, the rain didn’t materialise and the lap times continued to tumble, with Tom Sykes netting his seventh pole position of 2012 with an impressive 1:58.010 lap. Interestingly though, no one has won a race from pole position this year.

In the dying minutes, Marco Melandri went back out on circuit with a race tyre on and was putting in personal best lap times in every sector, which ended up being good enough for the front row, until fellow Italian Davide Guiligano – who had been closely following Melandri – just managed to pip his compatriot by one tenth of a second, thus relegating Marco to fifth on the grid.

Leon Haslam put in his best lap time of the weekend so far in the Wet Superpole and finished this session seventh fastest, while the remaining RR rider Michel Fabrizio (Badovini wasn’t able to compete after his earlier crash) will be the third BMW on row two after he finished just behind Leon in eighth place.

Marco Melandri:

“Starting from fifth position here in Brno is not too bad. First of all, I start on the outside of the track which hopefully allows me to carry more speed into the first corner. Also, the way to the first corner is quite long, and last but not least there are opportunities for passing on this circuit. Still, I am not happy that the qualifying tyre does not work on our bike. Again, I did my fastest lap times on the race tyre. That means that something is wrong. Compared to yesterday, we improved the chattering on the race tyre, but I still struggled a little bit. I don’t think I could be much faster but I have a lot better race rhythm. Overall, I am confident for tomorrow.”

Leon Haslam:

“I am quite happy. This is one of the circuits where I have always had issues, but slowly and surely we are getting a set-up for the bike and I am changing my riding style to try and get to where we need to be, which is at the front. We made a big improvement for Superpole and hopefully we can make some more improvements for tomorrow. The conditions in the afternoon were quite tricky, with the rain coming down and oil on two corners, so everyone was a little cautious. Some took more risks than others. The races will be hard, but we will keep pushing and if we can keep improving as we have done today then I want to fight for the podium for sure.

Head of Race Operations Andrea Dosoli:

“It was a very thrilling Superpole. It is always important to be on the first two rows and we are satisfied that we managed this by being on the second row with both riders. We are happy with the progress done by Leon on a racetrack where he has struggled in the past. He has improved his pace and his performance, and we hope that during the warm-up tomorrow we can further improve some areas of the bike in order to be a few tenths faster on the pace.

“Marco has been fast all weekend and even though he had lost the qualifying session this morning, he and his crew were able to work well on the bike and on the set-up. Also in this case the performance has improved compared to yesterday as we have seen with the lap times done in Superpole on the race tyre – his pace is one of the best. So it is a pity he cannot start from the first row but we are confident that as usual he will perform well during the start and he will be fighting for a race win.”

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