BMW Motorrad Motorsport’s Marco Melandri has secured the all-important front row grid position for tomorrow’s two races at the Portimão circuit in Portugal.

With just 26.5 points separating the top three riders in the points standings, Superpole qualification has become more important than ever, especially as the championship nears its conclusion at this challenging and technical 4.445-km circuit with its blind crests, and up and downhill sections.

Having been the fastest rider on day one at Portimão, Marco Melandri was fully focussed on achieving the all important front row grid position on his BMW S 1000 RR for Sunday’s two races, as was his factory team-mate Leon Haslam, who worked hard throughout yesterday to secure the fifth fastest time.

In sunny, warm conditions today, and with only two qualifier tyres available across three sessions, the plan – as always – was to get a good lap in on a race tyre in session one and save the qualifiers for the final two sessions.

In SP1, both Marco and Leon did two flying laps of the circuit on a soft compound race tyre and then returned to the pits to see what their rivals could do. Near identical lap times of 1:42.809 and 1:42.811 put Leon and Marco safely through to SP2 in fifth and sixth place respectively, with both ‘qualifier’ tyres still available for the remaining sessions.

In SP2, Marco was out early in the session with Max Biaggi to chase down in front of him. On a qualifier tyre, Macro’s first flying lap (1:42.378) took him to provisional pole, before Tom Sykes posted the fastest ever lap around Portimão circuit of 1:41.691 secs. But in the end, Marco went safely through to SP3 as fourth fastest rider. Leon Haslam was forced to use both his qualifier tyres during this session to progress through to SP3. He posted his best lap of 1:42.751 with just 90 seconds remaining, but it was good enough to see him through to the final session, albeit only with race tyres left.

Interestingly, the top eight riders in the championship were the same eight riders who made it through to SP3. It was Eugene Laverty who dipped into the 1:41s on his first flying lap, then Tom Sykes soon followed with an amazing, and unbeatable lap of 1:41.415 to secure his eighth pole position of the year. Marco’s final qualifier tyre helped him achieve a lap of 1:42.015, good enough to secure another front row start. He returned to the circuit on a race tyre with just three minutes remaining just to get a bit more track information, while Leon rode hard on race tyres to become the sixth fastest rider of the session and will therefore start tomorrow’s two races from the second row of the grid.

Marco Melandri:

“I think our starting position is better than we expected because we were struggling to get a fast single lap in, though we improved a little bit with the qualifying tyre. Tomorrow’s races won’t be easy. We are still not happy with the handling of the bike on race tyres. Every time we have more chattering we struggle a lot. I have to be careful in every corner; with every braking. In addition to that it is a very bouncy track and the bike moves a lot sideways. There are many fast turns, and the last corner is especially difficult. The races will be tough but we will try to improve the bike for tomorrow and to make a good start. I will try to overtake right at the start and then we have to see how good our race pace will be.”

Leon Haslam:

“For the situation we were in I am really happy. Again, we couldn’t get the qualifying tyres to work at all. We were slow on both qualifying tyres. Right at the end, I used a race tyre and went another 0.5 to 0.6 quicker. For me, to do it on the race tyre I am pretty happy. Second row is always the main objective. It would have been nice to get the qualifying tyres to work, but it’s looking good for the race. I think that everybody will be on the same tyres tomorrow. Now we will have to wait and see what the weather conditions will be like, we have to analyse what we have achieved today and then see to make some more fine-tuning for tomorrow.”

Andrea Dosoli (Head of Race Operations):

“All the work done since yesterday has been positive and we were able to improve the performance of both riders. But the races will not be easy. For sure it is helpful to start from the first and second row, but we are not 100 percent satisfied with the results we have achieved on the set-up. It is very difficult to find the right set-up on this track. It is always a compromise, and we would like to improve the race pace and give both riders a bike a bit less nervous and a bit more comfortable to ride, because the race will be tough and they must feel comfortable on the bike. We know that there is still a bit missing and we will work hard this afternoon and during the night in order to find this bit during the warm-up tomorrow.”

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