The top-15 riders from Qualifying faced today the challenge of Tissot-Superpole to secure the best positioning on the grid for tomorrow's two races at the iconic Assen's TT Circuit. Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) got his 13th pole start of his career, the 2nd in 2013, courtesy of an outstanding 1'35.043. The rider from Huddersfield was not fully satisfied of his achievement and tried, with no success, to further improve Jonathan Rea's Best Lap from 2010.

The Pata Honda World Superbike rider himself - who got 4 wins out of the last 6 races at Assen - was 2nd and finally able to turn over a new leaf on his difficult start of the season. Eugene Laverty (Aprilia Racing Team) took the last slot of the first row and preceded his team mate Sylvain Guintoli, with Loris Baz (Kawasaki Racing Team) and Davide Giugliano to follow.

Marco Melandri (BMW Motorrad GoldBet) ended up Superpole in 7th place and was again unable to get a spot in the first two rows (the Italian rider never managed so far in 2013 to get a front row start). Carlos Checa (Team Ducati Alstare) finished 8th ahead of Michel Fabrizio (Red Devils Roma Aprilia). The Spanish rider was 0.3 seconds slower in the end than in Superpole 2 (he would have been 5th with his SP2 lap-time).

A difficult Superpole for Aragon double winner Chaz Davies (BMW Motorrad GoldBet), who will move off tomorrow from 13th place on the grid. The Welshman was kicked out of top-12 in the closing stages of Superpole 1 by Jules Cluzel (FIXI Crescent Suzuki, 10th at the end).



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