Rea sets lap record for Qatar pole position
Jonathan Rea has once again blitzed the competition in 2017 to set a new lap record at the Losail International Circuit to take pole position for race one of the season finale.
The triple World Superbike champion has been in peerless form in Qatar having topped every practice session and duly converted that pace into the last pole position of the year and his sixth pole of the campaign. Rea produced a new lap record using the Pirelli qualifier tyre with a 1m 56.228s to go almost a half a second clear of the chasing pack.
Jonathan Rea has once again blitzed the competition in 2017 to set a new lap record at the Losail International Circuit to take pole position for race one of the season finale.
The triple World Superbike champion has been in peerless form in Qatar having topped every practice session and duly converted that pace into the last pole position of the year and his sixth pole of the campaign. Rea produced a new lap record using the Pirelli qualifier tyre with a 1m 56.228s to go almost a half a second clear of the chasing pack.
Alex Lowes was able to split the Kawasaki pair to take second on the grid for Pata Yamaha with an impressive final qualifying lap to go clear of Tom Sykes by almost four-tenths of a second, with the Yorkshire rider completing the front row.
Lorenzo Savadori bounced back from two falls in FP2 to head up the second row for Milwaukee Aprilia with Xavi Fores in the middle splitting the Italian from his team-mate Eugene Laverty.
Michael van der Mark, fresh from his MotoGP debut as stand-in for Jonas Folger in Sepang, held off the Aruba.it Racing Ducati pair to get to the front of row three with Chaz Davies in eighth and Marco Melandri ninth after the Italian rider suffered a late technical issue in Superpole 2.
Superpole 1 graduate Sylvain Guintoli grabbed tenth on the grid for Puccetti Kawasaki ahead of Jordi Torres on the Althea BMW and Leon Camier on the MV Agusta.
