Under the grey skies of the Autodromo International do Algarve, the eni FIM Superbike World Championship riders tackled the 6th Tissot-Superpole of the season.

An incredibly close battle for the top slot on the grid saw Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) scoring his 16th career pole position – the 5th in a row in 2013 – for just a thousand of a second on Eugene Laverty (Aprilia Racing Team). The same gap between the top-2 riders in Superpole happened only once before, as in 2009 Ben Spies snatched pole from Michel Fabrizio at Kyalami. The 1’41.360 set by the British rider means also a new Best Lap for the Portuguese track.

Today’s Superpole was partly influenced by the weather, as drops of rain began to fall moments before the start of Superpole 2. As per the 2013 WSBK Sporting Regulations, a final 20-minute wet session took place with all 12 riders involved. The conditions quickly improved, though, meaning the riders could fight for the top positions on the grid on dry track.

Jonathan Rea (Pata Honda World Superbike) completes the first row of the grid for tomorrow’s two races, matching his previous good performances from qualifying. 4th place Marco Melandri (BMW Motorrad Goldbet) finished ahead of Sylvain Guintoli (Aprilia Racing Team), Loris Baz (Kawasaki Racing Team) and an improving Carlos Checa (Team Ducati Alstare), able to put up a good lap onboard his 1199 Panigale R despite his left shoulder injury.

Frenchman Jules Cluzel (FIXI Cluzel) was 8th at the flag followed by the Italian trio of Michel Fabrizio (Red Devils Roma Aprilia), Ayrton Badovini (Team Ducati Alstare) and Davide Giugliano (Althea Racing Ducati). The 2011 STK1000 Champion had an innocent crash at Turn 8 during the last Superpole session.