At Motorland Aragon the first Superpole of 2018 World Supersport 300 confirmed what happened in FPs, where Kawasaki Ninja 400 was the fastest bike of the field. The new machine built by the manufacturer based in Akashi seems to be, together with KTM RC390R, a huge step forward compared to Yamaha YZF-R3 and Honda CBR500R and this is proved also by the classification of Superpole, with a “green” first row and eight Ninja 400 inside the top 10.
The first 2018 Superpole went to Mika Pérez. The Spanish rider, signed by ParkinGO Team, took the lead in the early stages of Superpole 2 and then consolidated it with a lap in 2’07.938, which gave Mika his third pole position in WorldSSP300. In the race, scheduled on Sunday 15th April at 14:30 local time, Pérez will be joined in the front row by Scott Deroue and Dorren Loureiro. Last year the South African “Doz #20” had never been as fast as he was today.
Good performance also for Ana Carrasco, Loureiro’s team-mate in David Salom’s DS Junior Team. The rider from Murcia ranked fourth and so she will open the second row in front of the Dutchmen Koen Meuffels (first KTM rider) and Robert Schotman. Third row for Borja Sánchez, Luca Grünwald and Filippo Rovelli, while Tom Edwards closes the top 10 in front of Galang Hendra Pratama (best Yamaha rider in the classification) and Glenn van Straalen. Van Straalen, who went through SP1 together with Rovelli, had a small crash at the beginning of SP2 and was later joined by Edwards.
Disappointing performance for the other two Spanish girls in the field: María Herrera and the wild card Beatriz Neila. The ex-Moto3 rider will start from 17th position after ranking 7th in SP1, due also to the quite big speed gap between Yamaha and the Kawasaki-KTM pair, while Neila will start from the 40th and last position after a technical issue.