#Sylvain @Guintoli will start tomorrow’s two 12th round World Superbike championship races from the second row of the grid after setting the fifth-fastest time in Superpole at Magny-Cours in France.
With steady rain falling on the second Superpole session of the afternoon, the Pata Honda rider took his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP around the damp 4.411km Magny-Cours circuit in a time of 1m57.839s as British rider Leon Haslam took pole position.
Guintoli pushed a little too hard to improve his time and crashed unhurt exiting the infamous Adelaide hairpin. The 33-year-old French ace was able to rejoin but a red flag shortly afterwards brought all riders back into the pits. With two-and-a-half minutes remaining, Guintoli was planning another assault on the front row but handlebar damage from the earlier crash ended his Superpole.
His Pata Honda team-mate Michael van der Mark, endured a difficult day at Magny-Cours, despite making a step forward in the final free practice session. The Dutch rider was forced to sit out much of the earlier FP3 following a technical problem and could not elevate himself on the timing sheets for a Superpole 2 slot.
Instead, van der Mark, 22, started well in Superpole 1 but found that a lack of grip at the rear prevented any further progress. He came into the pits for some adjustments to his CBR but was unable to improve and will consequently start tomorrow’s two 21-lap races from 15th place on the grid.
Sylvain Guintoli - P5
Fifth is OK I guess, especially after crashing, and I think it’s probably as good as we could have hoped for in the dry. I was improving during the session and getting the lap time down, so it’s not so bad, but it might have been better without the crash. There’s not too much grip here in the wet so you have to keep going and build the temperature in the tyres and build your confidence at the same time, step by step. You can very easily make a mistake, exactly like I did, but to be fair the bike felt quite good. I was just building the session towards the end but then we couldn’t restart after the red flag because the handlebars were broken. It’s a shame about the little slide, but no damage and no injuries, so we’ll be alright for tomorrow.
Michael van der Mark - P15
We had a little problem this morning which took away some track time but we changed a couple of things and made a step forward in FP4. In the end the lap time was OK and the overall pace wasn’t too bad and I think we made some progress but then the rain came down before Superpole. There was just no grip and I had to come in because it didn’t feel good. We changed a bit but there was still no grip and very little feeling from the rear.
Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator
This morning was not so good for Michael but FP4 was a much better session and he improved his lap time quite a bit, so there was some progress in the dry. Superpole was wet, however, and he came in after a small moment. We tried to do something with the tyre pressure and the settings and sent him back out again but, in the end, he didn’t have quite enough laps to get into a rhythm. With Sylvain we continued looking for an improvement in the set-up and ended up close to the setting we started with yesterday. That was enough to see him go directly to Superpole 2, which was wet. He ended up fifth, in spite of a small crash, so it’s all to play for tomorrow.
Weather
Wet
Air
14°C
Track
19°C
Humidity
88%
Qualifying Results
1 Leon Haslam 1m56.404s GBR APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils
2 Jonathan Rea 1m56.408s GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
3 Niccolo Canepa 1m56.912s ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
4 Chaz Davies 1m57.049s GBR DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
5 Sylvain Guintoli 1m57.839s FRA HONDA Pata Honda World Superbike Team
6 Luca Scassa 1m57.991s ITA DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
7 Leon Camier 1m59.768s. GBR MV MV Agusta Reparto Corse
8 Ayrton Badovini 2m00.676s ITA BMW JR Racing Team
9 Tom Sykes 2m01.144s GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
10 Markus Reiterberger 2m01.800s GER BMW VanZon Remeha BMW
15 Michael van der Mark 2m00.528s NED HONDA Pata Honda World Superbike Team
