Pata Honda riders Michael van der Mark and Sylvain Guintoli will both start from the third row of the grid for tomorrow’s two second round World Superbike championship races at Buriram in Thailand.

Van der Mark set the seventh fastest time in Superpole with a lap of 1m34.514s while his Pata Honda team-mate will line up next to him on the grid after posting the eighth fastest lap, just five hundredths of a second slower, at 1m34.562s.

With temperatures slightly cooler for today’s proceedings, most of Free Practice 3 this morning was lost to rain, restricting track time for the riders on their CBR machines.

However, the warmer weather is expected to return for tomorrow’s two 20-lap races at the 4.554km Chang International circuit.

Michael van der Mark - P8, 1m34.514s

I’m quite happy today. We missed 45 minutes of practice this morning and I wasn’t able to improve the time so I went directly into Superpole 1. But FP4 was much better and I was able to improve the feeling with the CBR and also the lap time, which made me much happier. In Superpole 1 I started on the race tyre and then the qualifier but that didn’t bring much. We did the same in Superpole 2 and I was able to improve my time quite a bit. I’m happy with our position - I think the gap to the guys at the front is a little bit to far but I think our race pace is OK.



Sylvain Guintoli - P9, 1m34.562s

We’re still working hard and doing everything that we can trying to catch up. Obviously, we are missing a second and on a small track like this, that’s quite a lot. So we’re going to spend some time now going through everything on the data to try and understand how we can improve our pace and the race rhythm for tomorrow.


Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator

We hoped for dry weather but unfortunately this morning it was wet and we lost some valuable track time. Michael went through to Superpole 1 and that gave him a little more track time. He improved a lot in the last free practice too and his race pace is not looking so bad. He qualified eighth and the gap to the front looks quite big but I know his race pace is better than that. We worked through a lot of things with Sylvain and he was feeling OK but he ended a fraction behind Michael. As always, we’ll debrief and analyse and look for something he can go better with tomorrow.

Qualifying position  

1 Jonathan Rea 1'33.382 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team 
2 Leon Haslam 1'33.393 GBR APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils
3 Alex Lowes 1'33.738 GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
4 Tom Sykes 1'33.841 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
5 Jordi Torres 1'34.080 ESP APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils
6 Chaz Davies 1'34.084 GBR DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
7 Troy Bayliss 1'34.334 DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
8 Michael van der Mark 1'34.514 NED HONDA Pata Honda
9 Sylvain Guintoli 1'34.562 FRA HONDA Pata Honda
10 Leandro Mercado 1'34.674 DUCATI BARNI Racing Team
11 David Salom 1'34.961 ESP KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
12 Matteo Baiocco 1'35.024 DUCATI Althea Racing
13 Sylvain Barrier 1'35.115 FRA BMW BMW Motorrad Italia Superbike Team
14 Nicolas Terol 1'35.255 ESP DUCATI Althea Racing
15 Leon Camier 1'35.267 GBR MV AGUSTA MV Agusta Repart Corse
16 Randy de Puniet 1'35.578 FRA SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
17 Roman Ramos 1'36.226 ESP KAWASAKI Team Go Eleven
18 Niccolo Canepa 1'36.466 ITA EBR Team Hero EBR
19 Christophe Ponsson 1'36.788 KAWASAKI Grillini SBK Team
20 Santiago Barragan 1'37.536 KAWASAKI Grillini SBK Team
21 Anucha Nakcharoensri 1'38.174 HONDA YSS TS Racing
22 Greg Gildenhuys 1'38.767 KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
23 Larry Pegram 1'38.870 EBR Team Hero EBR
24 Imre Toth 1'39.256 HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
25 Ireneusz Sikora 1'40.719 BMW BMW Team Toth
26 Chanon Chumjai 1'40.810 BMW RAC Oil Racing Team

Championship standings  

1 Jonathan Rea 45 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team 
2 Leon Haslam 45 pts GBR APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils
3 Chaz Davies 32 pts GBR DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
4 Tom Sykes 23 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
5 Sylvain Guintoli 20 pts FRA HONDA Pata Honda
6 Nicolas Terol 18 pts ESP DUCATI Althea Racing
7 Leon Camier 14 pts GBR MV AGUSTA MV Agusta Repart Corse
8 Jordi Torres 13 pts ESP APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils
9 Matteo Baiocco 12 pts DUCATI Althea Racing
10 Michael van der Mark 11 pts NED HONDA Pata Honda
11 Leandro Mercado 9 pts DUCATI BARNI Racing Team
12 Randy de Puniet 9 pts FRA SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
13 Alex Lowes 7 pts GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
14 Roman Ramos 6 pts ESP KAWASAKI Team Go Eleven
15 Sylvain Barrier 5 pts FRA BMW BMW Motorrad Italia Superbike Team
16 Santiago Barragan 3 pts KAWASAKI Grillini SBK Team
17 Troy Bayliss 3 pts DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
18 Jed Metcher 2 pts KAWASAKI Race Center - Demolition Plus
19 Larry Pegram 2 pts EBR Team Hero EBR
20 Christophe Ponsson 1 pts KAWASAKI Grillini SBK Team
21 Imre Toth 0 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth