Marco Melandri took his first pole position in 2018 season after an exciting Superpole and he will start in front of all his opponents in Race 1.
At the beginning it was Jonathan Rea who went first. The reigning World Superbike Champion was the fastest rider in the early stages with a lap in 1’50.075, almost six tenths faster than Marco Melandri (1’50.661), and during the last minutes of action he managed to improve till performing one lap in 1’49.574. It seemed to be enough to get his second pole position in this season, but it wasn’t: in the final stages Melandri lowered his best laptime till 1’49.543 and this allowed him to beat Rea by just 31 milliseconds.
Also Tom Sykes made a huge step forward just before the chequered flag, but his 1’49.644 was enough just to take 3rd place and front-row start for Race 1. 4th place for the home hero Xavi Forés, who will start from the second row in front of the Pata Yamaha duo Alex Lowes and Michael van der Mark. The other Spaniard Jordi Torres will start 7th, followed by Michael Ruben Rinaldi and Leon Camier.
Rinaldi will start from 8th position after going through SP1 together with the wild card Vladimir Leonov. The reigning European Superstock 1000 Champion is doing a very good job in his first race weekend in WorldSBK and he’s got the potential to perform very well also in races. If Melandri and Rinaldi can be satisfied with their performance, the other Aruba.it Ducati rider Chaz Davies crashed at Turn 2 in the most crucial phase of SP2 and this prevented him to fight for front positions. The Welsh rider will start from 11th postion with Lorenzo Savadori (10th) and Vladimir Leonov (12th), who crashed at Turn 2 as well as Davies and Loris Baz in SP1.
Photo Credit: Diego De Col