Red Devils Aprilia’s Leon Haslam has taken his second World Superbike Superpole of the season this afternoon at a wet Magny-Cours before crashing on his final lap and joining a list of riders who ended in the gravel.
Haslam headed newly-crowned world champion Jonathan Rea by just 0.004s with Althea Ducati’s Nico Canepa taking his second front-row start in succession after he finished half a second off Haslam’s 1’56.404 pole time.
Aruba Ducati’s Chaz Davies will head the second row despite losing the front of his Panigale with five minutes left to run. Davies went down on the brakes into Lycee but did manage to get out agin. Hometown hero Sylvain Guintoli slipped off a minute before Davies but his time of 1’57.839 was enough for seventh place just ahead of Luca Scassa and Leon Camier who came through Superpole one.
Ayrton Badovini put the BMW Italia S1000RR in eighth place with Tom Sykes, who crashed his factory Kawasaki at turne 13 with eight minutes left, in ninth and Markus Reiterberger in tenth.
Alex Lowes had a horrible looking crash in the final minutes of the session which saw him knocked out. The red flag was brought out but the Voltcom Suzuki man recovered and walked back to the pitlane.
