Not withstanding the drama of Liberty Racing and Sylvain Guintoli’s slightly absurd dustup and parting of ways, along with the news the BMW Motorrad would fold its factory team into the BMW Italia effort, it’s been business as usual at Brno for World Superbike this week. The same could not be said for Saturday’s Superpole event though, which suffered from fluids being dumped on the track, and then a bout of rain caused the qualifying to go to a wet format. With teams having to adapt to the changing format, the grid for Sunday is certainly an interesting one.
With the rain pouring right before World Superbike’s Superpole event at Misano, Race Direction at the Italian track called the session “wet” — thus reducing the knock-out style qualifying session from three rounds to only two. With the track drying rapidly though, the wet session looked a lot like a dry one, sans for some early-on damp patches along the racing line.
Tipping the balance just enough, the two-round dry qualifying found some top riders biding their time too long in the pits, which proved to have disastrous effects on their grid positions for Sunday’s double-header race.
Encircled by the gorgeous Wasatch and Oquirrh mountain ranges, Miller Motorsports Park has some of the most dramatic backdrops out of all the World Superbike venues, though coupled with the track’s 4,000+ foot elevation, the weather can be wet and cold at times. Such words were probably an understatement for the conditions on Sunday, as frigid temperatures and rain prevailed in the day’s earlier sessions. Realizing that some Superpole qualifying was scheduled for later though, the weather gods appeased the American crowd, who had been braving the conditions, and quickly dried the track for World Superbike qualifying.
Down on power at the very fast track, the Ducatis of Smrz and Checa surprised everyone with their dominance on the time sheets. Of course, Tom Sykes could not be counted out from the qualifying fun, as the Englishman has taken four of the past five pole positions. One of only two stops on the WSBK calendar that is outside of Europe, American fans were treated on this Memorial Day weekend to some fine qualifying, which included some upsets. Results after the jump.
Declared a wet session by Race Direction, Superpole at Monza brought an interesting change of events at the historic Italian track. With horsepower being the name of the game during dry conditions, all eyes were trained to see if the damp weather could be the great equalizer for the Ducati contingency hoped for.
With the horsepower of the BMW S1000RR’s creating 1-2-3 advantage during the provisional pole session that was lead by the BMW Italia of Michel Fabrizio, Carlos Checa and the rest of the Ducatis had to contend with significantly slower trap speeds down the main straight. Getting some help from the weather, that seemed all to change though Saturday afternoon at Monza.
With the rain playing a factor during the Qualifying Practice sessions, riders like Max Biaggi were caught out, and left high and dry during an otherwise water-filled build up to today’s Superpole qualifying. As the Roman Emperor watched from the sidelines, World Superbike Race Direction deemed the Superpole a wet session, reducing the qualifying event to two twenty-minute sessions, with only the top eight riders going onto the second round. With the track actually dry for Superpole 2, all eyes were on Tom Sykes, to see if the Kawasaki rider could make a hat trick out of his qualifying streak.