So far World Supersport 300 Imola Round has been dominated by Ana Carrasco. After being first in both FP1 and Fp2, the strong Spaniard grabbed her first pole position in an international championship and what she’s done till now at the “Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari” circuit makes her automatically the main favourite for the win.
Instead of joining a group or waiting for a slipstream, as her male opponents did, Ana Carrasco spent the whole Superpole 2 alone. In such category slipstream plays an important role, we know it, but Carrasco was anyway the fastest from the first till the last minute and every time Scott Deroue tried to steal pole position from her hands, she replied by going much faster than him. Finally Carrasco took pole position with a monster lap in 2’07.076, even three seconds faster than last year’s pole scored by Mika Pérez (2’10.116).
The David Salom’s DS Junior Team rider left very little to the others: Scott Deroue, the “best of the rest”, finished second with even 982 milliseconds off Carrasco (2’08.058). The Motoport Kawasaki Dutch rider will start the race from the middle of first row, followed by his team-mate Robert Schotman (2’08.083). Behind them, WorldSSP300 Italian Round will see two local wildcard entries as Manuel Bastianelli (Kawasaki Prodina Ircos Racing) and Kevin Sabatucci (Yamaha ProGP) start from second row in fourth and sixth position, with the Spanish Borja Sánchez (Kawasaki ETG Racing) between them.
After struggling a lot in Free Practice sessions, due to the further changes about rpm limit and minimum weight, KTM improved a lot in Superpole and in SP2 it was represented by Jan-Ole Jähnig (KTM Freudenberg). The reigning German Supersport 300 Champion passed SP1 together with Manuel González and then he secured third-row start in front of González and Enzo De La Vega. The French rider, racing with Italian GP Project Team, ranked ninth by being faster than Galang Hendra Pratama, his team-mate Nick Kalinin and Ali Adrian Rusmiputro.
Many important names of WorldSSP300 didn’t make it to Superpole 2: Dani Valle (13th), Glenn van Straalen (14th), Assen winner Luca Grünwald (15th), Aragon winner Koen Meuffels (16th), María Herrera (19th) and Dorren Loureiro (21st). Even 23rd Mika Pérez, who fell halfway SP1.
