Marco Melandri, (Yamaha World Superbike Team) put in a great performance in qualifying to take his first ever Tissot-Superpole success and also give Yamaha its first top grid slot of the season. Melandri set a new track best of 1 minute 57.634 seconds in Superpole 3 and he will start Sunday’s 20-lap races with his great rival Max Biaggi, (Aprilia Alitalia Racing Team) as his closest challenger. Biaggi’s team-mate Leon Camier and championship leader Carlos Checa (Althea Racing) complete the front row.

Marco Melandri:

“It’s awesome, I’m very happy. I didn’t think it could happen, especially after Superpole 1 when I almost lost the chance to go to the next one. When I saw Max in front of everyone in Superpole 3, I had a few guys in the middle on race tyres so I passed them and followed Max to set my best time so I need to say thanks to him for my lap time!”

Max Biaggi:

“We’ve been working a lot to find the best set-up possible, I’m quite happy even though I’m not on pole, but tomorrow is a long race and it’s not going to be easy because it’s difficult to make the tyres last for the final eight laps. But we’re all in the same boat and we will see!”

Leon Camier:

“It makes a change for us to be up on the front row to be honest. I’m really happy with that, we’ve been working good all weekend. We made a couple of little changes since Misano and thought we were going to struggle a bit here but they have made the bike feel much better. Fingers crossed for tomorrow, it’ll be interesting to start from the front!”

Carlos Checa:

“I struggled here a bit in qualifying, and then made a small mistake in the last Superpole session going into the slow turn. It was difficult to fight for pole today, but we are confident for tomorrow’s races.”

Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team Superbike) put in a late charge on race tyres to fifth, with Eugene Laverty (Yamaha World Superbike Team), Joan Lascorz (Kawasaki Racing Team) and Ayrton Badovini (BMW Motorrad Italia SBK Team) all joining him on row two. The competition for places in qualifying was remarkable at such a long 5.344km circuit, with combined qualifying (which determines the top riders who go forward to Superpole) ending with the top 16 riders within a second of each other.

The four riders who had to exit Superpole after the second of three sessions were Misano podium finisher Noriyuki Haga (PATA Racing Team Aprilia), Sylvain Guintoli (Team Effenbert-Liberty Racing), Michel Fabrizio (Team Suzuki Alstare) and the remarkable Mark Aitchison (Team Pedercini) who had his most impressive qualifying of the year, ending up 12th from 20 riders in his rookie WSBK season on a privateer machine.

The first casualties of the stopwatch as the first session finished included a surprise figure, as Jakub Smrz (Effenbert-Liberty Racing)was second place in combined qualifying but he ended up 13th on the grid after Superpole 1. Even more of a surprise in some regards was that official BMW riders Leon Haslam (BMW Motorrad Motorsport) and Troy Corser (BMW Motorrad Motorsport) were unable to compete the way they hoped and finished 14th and 16th respectively. Privateer Ducati rider Maxime Berger (Supersonic Racing Team) took a fourth row start after posting some impressive times in earlier qualifying and practice sessions.

World Superbike – Aragon Superpole Result

Pos - Rider - Bike - Q1 - Q2 - Superpole

Superpole 3

1 - Melandri Marco - Yamaha YZF R1 - 1'59.726 - 1'59.437 - 1'57.634
2 - Biaggi Max - Aprilia RSV4 Factory - 2'00.309 - 1'59.278 - 1'57.790
3 - Camier Leon - Aprilia RSV4 Factory - 2'00.253 - 1'59.419 - 1'58.279
4 - Checa Carlos - Ducati 1098R - 2'00.073 - 1'59.183 - 1'58.472
5 - Sykes Tom - Kawasaki ZX-10R - 2'00.267 - 1'59.358 - 1'58.641
6 - Laverty Eugene - Yamaha YZF R1 - 2'00.503 - 1'59.831 - 1'58.756
7 - Lascorz Joan - Kawasaki ZX-10R - 2'00.727 - 1'59.830 - 1'59.194
8 - Badovini Ayrton - BMW S1000 RR - 2'00.377 - 1'59.579 - 1'59.591


Superpole 2

9 - Haga Noriyuki - Aprilia RSV4 Factory - 2'00.214 - 1'59.881 - 1'58.566
10 - Guintoli Sylvain - Ducati 1098R - 2'01.484 - 2'00.133 - 1'58.640
11 - Fabrizio Michel - Suzuki GSX-R1000 - 2'00.324 - 1'59.613 - 1'58.950
12 - Aitchison Mark - Kawasaki ZX-10R - 2'01.428 - 2'00.024 - 1'59.680


Superpole 1

13 - Smrz Jakub - Ducati 1098R - 2'01.829 - 1'59.262 - 1'59.355
14 - Haslam Leon - BMW S1000 RR - 2'01.047 - 2'00.007 - 1'59.367
15 - Berger Maxime - Ducati 1098R - 2'00.509 - 1'59.423 - 1'59.507
16 - Corser Troy - BMW S1000 RR - 2'00.798 - 2'00.182 - 1'59.565

Others on the grid
17 - Xaus Ruben - Honda CBR1000RR - 2'00.853 - 2'00.432
18 - Vermeulen Chris - Kawasaki ZX-10R - 2'01.567 - 2'00.507
19 - Rolfo Roberto - Kawasaki ZX-10R - 2'01.527 - 2'00.678
20 - Lanzi Lorenzo - BMW S1000 RR - 2'01.475 - 2'00.776