A pale sun was shining on Estoril, but the track was still wet due to the rain that fell yesterday and in the morning when the World Superbike riders were called to the track for the Superpole. Conditions that forced everyone to mount rain tires.
The wet track specialists therefore tried to put all their cards on the table, but they were not enough to get the better of the “usual” Toprak Razgatlioglu. Precisely on his last attempt, the World Championship leader stopped the clock on a time of 1’52″430, earning his second start on the Portuguese circuit, where he had achieved his first ever in SBK.
The last to surrender to the BMW rider was Danilo Petrucci, who had been on pole until a few moments earlier with his Barni Racing Team Ducati. The rider from Terni tried in his last attempt, arriving at T3 with 363 thousandths of an advantage over the Turk. However, a small flaw in the final part of the track led him to finish 82 thousandths behind.
The wet conditions also enhanced the skills of six-time world champion Jonathan Rea, who was able to enter the battle for pole. Probably the only mistake made by the Yamaha rider was to delay the tire change enough, which allowed him only one timed reference with the new one, which in the end earned him a 1’52″939 which keeps him in third position.
There is a lot of Italy in a second row that opens with Andrea Locatelli’s other Yamaha and continues with Nicolò Bulega. The Ducati rider is the only really concrete obstacle between Toprak and the early conquest of the title: to deny him, however, he will be called upon to make a comeback, because if the Turk scores 23 points more than him this weekend he will be champion.
Completing the second row is the BMW of Michael van der Mark, who is going through a complicated moment, given that he lost his mother a few days ago, but once again he made his sensitivity in the wet count. The third, however, opens with Alex Lowes doing well to patch up a session that began with a crash at turn 8. The Kawasaki rider will have the Ducati of his twin Sam at his side, ninth, but the real thing got in between the two. revelation of this Superpole, namely Tarran Mackenzie, eighth on the Mie Honda.
The top 10 is completed with Axel Bassani’s Kawasaki, while it was a particularly complicated Superpole for Alvato Bautista. The Ducati rider was on the “hook” of Razgatlioglu, but slipped at turn 6 and therefore finds himself only 11th on the grid. A placement that seriously jeopardizes his chances of keeping the games open, given that he would have to recover 19 points on Toprak this weekend in order not to abdicate the throne with a race to spare.
Completing the fourth row behind him is Andrea Iannone who is decidedly less brilliant than in Aragon so far this weekend. However, you have to go down to 15th position to find Michael Rinaldi, who finished behind the two Hondas of Xavi Vierge, who crashed at the end, and Iker Lecuona. Luca Bernardi from San Marino, returning as a wild card, occupies 20th place on the grid with the Motoxracing Yamaha.
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