Kyle Smith set the fourth fastest time in wet qualifying for tomorrow’s 11th round World Supersport race at Magny-Cours in France this afternoon, but it was an eventful session for the British rider as fellow Honda rider PJ Jacobsen took pole position.
Smith, 24, had been making good progress on his Honda CBR600RR in all three dry sessions before today’s qualifying was run to determine final grid positions for tomorrow’s 19-lap race.
However, rain fell heavily on the 4.411km Magny-Cours circuit ahead of this afternoon’s 45-minute session. Smith crashed unhurt early on after setting a competitive time and was able to remount and ride his CBR back to the garage for repairs.
After returning to the circuit and taking a few laps to get back into a rhythm, the Pata Honda rider was challenging for pole position in the closing minutes of the session. With the fastest time in three of the four sectors, Smith crashed near the end of the lap at turn 13 and could not improve on his fourth-fastest time.
Kyle Smith - P4 - 2m02.310s
Yeah, I enjoy riding in the wet and it was exciting, that’s for sure! I was on a flyer on that last lap – a possible pole position lap – and crashed at the second-last corner. It’s a complete bummer but it happens, and I was pushing, which I knew I had to do the get pole, but I just pushed it over the limit. I clattered my hip a bit because there’s a kerb as you come off the tarmac and on to the gravel, so that’ll be a bit black and blue in the morning, but nothing to worry about. We were making some progress earlier, too, so I’m not fussed if it’s wet or dry in the morning. P4 after two crashes is not too bad so I think we can still have a good race.
Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator
Kyle was immediately quite fast in the wet and put the CBR second for a while before he had a small crash. Luckily there was not too much damage and he was OK. We made a small change at the rear, too, to get the tyre working a little better. By the time he went out again it had stopped raining and he was able to improve his time by two seconds and the session was going down to the wire. In the third split he was 0.7s under the pole time but he had another crash and ended up P4. We can be quite happy with that and we’ll see how the weather is in the morning. He had good pace on used tyres in the dry this morning so I think we can look forward to tomorrow whatever the skies bring.
Weather
Wet
Air
14°C
Track
18°C
Humidity
89%
Qualifying Results
1 Patrick Jacobson 2m00.197s USA HONDA CORE Motorsport Thailand
2 Kenan Sofuoglu 2m00.237s TUR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Puccetti Racing
3 Lucas Mahias 2m01.549s FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres
4 Kyle Smith 2m02.310s GBR HONDA Pata Honda World Supersport Team
5 Alex Baldolini 2m02.666s ITA MV Race Department ATK#25
6 Gino Rea 2m03.311s GBR HONDA CIA Landlords Insurance Honda
7 Lorenzo Zanetti 2m03.436s ITA MV MV Agusta Reparto Corse
8 Martin Cardenas 2m03.498s COL HONDA CIA Landlords Insurance Honda
9 Kevin Manfredi 2m04.222s ITA HONDA CIA Landlords Insurance Honda
10 Aidan Wagner 2m04.737s AUS YAMAHA Oz Wildcard Racing
