WSBK: Interrupted Superpole During Qualifying at Brno

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 qualifying going ahead normally at first, the big shock of Superpole 1 was the exclusion of Max Biaggi, who gambled on his session by using a race tire on his Aprilia RSV4 Factory, instead of a qualifier, and found himself 14th on the starting grid for Sunday. Also excluded was the Fixi-Crescent Suzuki team riders, as both Leon Camier and John Hopkins could not make the first cut, as they continue to struggle with the under-powered WSBK-spec Suzuki GSX-R1000.

In Superpole 2, the session had to be red-flagged midway through, as Davide Giugliano’s Ducati spilled water onto the course. Sending a bevy of riders into the gravel trap behind him, the session was set to be restarted as riders took to the course for a five-minute sighting session.

With the rain starting to fall at the conclusion of the sighting laps, WSBK Race Direction deemed the session wet, giving riders just a single 18 minute session to decided the last 12 spots on the grid. Again starting from pole-position is Tom Sykes, who will try to be the first pole-setter this season to win on race day.

Superpole Results from World Superbike at Brno, Czech Republic:

Source: WSBK