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Brno WorldSBK: Pole and new lap record for Sykes

Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes and his team-mate Jonathan Rea had a late-session battle for supremacy in WorldSBK Superpole two at Brno, with Sykes winning out for his 45 career Superpole win, and his third of the year.

Already Superpole’s best ever rider, Sykes was 0.198 seconds ahead of Rea at a circuit both had tested at recently. Tom’s 1’57.687 lap was over 0.3 seconds under the old track record, set by him in 2012, when WorldSBK machines had more top end than they do now.

“It felt steady,” said Sykes. “I just missed a couple of apexes trying to be a big greedy in some corners, but I managed to square it off on the way out. Yesterday Jonathan and I were joking that we needed to be in the 1’57s. It is an impressive lap time and it shows how much Pirelli and Kawasaki have worked in these past few years.”

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Old Brno MotoGP and WorldSBK hand Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) found pace for third place and a front row start to race one later today.

In a nicely cosmopolitan Superpole 2 session behind KRT’s short green wall of dominance, Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK) placed fourth, Eugene Laverty (Milwaukee Aprilia) fifth and double Donington Race winner, Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK), sixth.

The third row will comprise Lorenzo Savadori (Milwaukee Aprilia), Loris Baz (GULF ALTHEA BMW Racing Team) and the out-of-sorts Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati).

Leon Camier (Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team) was top Honda rider in tenth. Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba Racing IT Ducati Junior Team) and Yonny Hernandez (Team Pedercini Racing Kawasaki) completed the 12 riders that ran in Superpole 2. Laverty and Hernandez were the two riders to have made it out of Superpole one, and join Friday’s top ten in Superpole two.

Honda riders PJ Jacobsen and Jake Gagne are 17th and 19th respectively on the grid.

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