Kawasaki Racing Team riders Tom Sykes and Loris Baz headed the field after Superpole giving Sykes his 20th career Superpole and Baz his first ever front row start. KRT SBK Evo rider David Salom was 14th overall after qualifying for Superpole 1 on his Ninja ZX-10R.

The 5.344 km long Motorland Aragon track had occasionally posed challenges to Sykes and Baz in the past but both riders and their team had the answers when it counted in Superpole, with a peerless 1-2 finish. Sykes was not quite able to match his previous track best of 1’56.339, which he set last year, but his 1’56.479 best in Superpole Two was very close to it.

In taking his first pole position of the season, Sykes is now the fourth most successful rider in this specialised pre-race competition for the best possible starting position at each round. He is only one place behind the legendary SBK figure of Carl Fogarty, who scored 21 Superpole wins in his long career.

Before today Loris’ best SBK qualifying position was fourth, not only making his Aragon second place his best pre-race performance this year, but easily his best to date. He is now in the perfect position to maximise his ever-improving capabilities over race distance during the two 17-lap Superbike races on Sunday. Currently second in the 2014 championship Loris is looking for his third career race win with Kawasaki on raceday.

David Salom had to work hard in qualifying to overcome pain his recently injured right hand, and to find good settings for the latest electronic advances on his Evo Ninja ZX-10R. Unable to capitalise with a qualifying rear tyre fitted in Superpole One, he was unable to join his KRT team-mates Sykes and Baz in Superpole Two. David will now start from the fifth row of the grid in his defence of the leading spot in the SBK Evo competition.

Tom Sykes:

“I am happy because the target was a front row start but we got pole position. I honestly felt the lap could have been better but after four corners I was having some tucking from the front tyres and I did not want to overstep the mark. I think I could have beaten my own track record but it was not to be. The conditions were good, the bike was working well and unfortunately I was just riding too much with the front tyre. The Ninja ZX-10R is working well over long distance so we will see what tomorrow’s temperature gives us. It will be interesting to see where we go in terms of track temperature but I feel we have answers, whichever way it is. Yesterday afternoon in hot conditions we had a very, very good bike and today it has been cooler and we have learned a lot about it in slightly cooler conditions.”

Loris Baz:

“We have worked a lot on everything on our bike and set-up since last year and our settings are totally different from last season. I feel more confident and I did not crash in all the winter tests, then crashed three times in Phillip Island, but again I am really confident with the bike here. I feel very strong in every track now because in the past Aragon was not a really good track for me. Now we are really fast so everything is going better. We keep closing the gap to Tom and that is really good. We have two very different settings on the bike as we have two totally different riding styles. I have worked a lot on my style and everything is going well now. I think a podium is possible tomorrow as I am always usually faster in the race than in qualifying, so it will be interesting. We will have to save the tyre and choose the correct one depending on the temperature. A lot of things can affect a race in different ways but we will try our best to be on the podiums.”

David Salom:

“I have a lot of pain from my hand when I open the gas but have had a lot of things to do this weekend in practice. We have some electronic settings to work out that we should have done in testing in Jerez last week but I crashed there so we lost some track time. We needed to try those things out here, and I am not in perfect condition. In my fast lap with a qualifying tyre in Superpole one I ran wide off the track and although I tried hard on my second lap I finished fourth in Superpole one, and 14th on the grid.”

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