Chaz Davies sets new qualifying record on his way to pole position in Aragon

01 April 2017 11:54

Britain's Chaz Davies set a new qualifying record at the MotorLand Aragon circuit as he claimed Superpole for race one at the third round of the Superbike World Championship.

The Ducati rider, who set the pace in final practice earlier on Saturday, recorded a time of one minute 49.319 seconds to clinch pole position as he beat Tom Sykes' (Kawasaki) time of 1min 49.374secs set last year.

The Welshman is joined on the front row by double world champion Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki) and fellow Brit Sykes, who followed him closely throughout the third practice session.

Italy's Marco Melandri (Ducati) was hot on Sykes' heels in fourth and lines up alongside Spanish duo Javier Fores (Ducati) and Jordi Torres (BMW) - at their home race - on the second row.

Ireland's Eugene Laverty starts on row three after qualifying ninth and lines up next to Aprilla team-mate Leandro Mercado and Michael van der Mark (Yamaha), while Nicky Hayden (Honda) and German team-mate Stefan Bradl qualified 10th and 11th.

Britain's Alex Lowes completes the fourth row after he was forced to pull off track due to a technical problem with his Yamaha which effectively ended his session as he qualified 12th.

Crashes in close succession for Randy Krummenacher, Ondrej Jezek and Markus Reiterberger, who finished 10th fastest in practice, saw the trio slide out of contention and unable to challenge for Superpole 2 positions.

Source: PA