WSBK Superbike Barcelona Superpole: Sykes creates a surprise, end of series for Rea!

The English driver won the Superpole this morning in Catalonia, to the detriment of Toprak Razgatlıoğlu and Jonathan Rea, who will accompany him on the first row of the grid this afternoon.

A few moments after the qualifying session for the Supersport category, it was the turn of the Superbike entrants to tease the clock during their Superpole. Fifteen minutes of competition which promised to be very spectacular, while the fight between Toprak Razgatlıoğlu and Jonathan Rea reached peaks of intensity as the end of the season approached.

The two rivals had in fact gone head to head during the three free practice sessions held earlier this weekend, with a slight advantage to the Turk who had so far been the fastest during FP3. His Northern Irish rival had, for his part, on the contrary, marked time during the final free practice session, unable to do better than eighth in this same session.

 

But we must be wary of standing water, especially when we know that Rea is undefeated in the Superpole exercise in 2021! However, it was a third party who sowed discord at the top of the hierarchy at the start of the session, in the person of Tom Sykes. This is not the first time that the BMW driver has played spoilsport among the leaders this weekend, the 2013 World Champion having moved to first place during all the free practice sessions.

Summary of the results of the 2020 edition:

WSBK Superbike Catalonia	September 2020	September 2021
FP1	1'42.140 Toprak Razgatlıoğlu	1'42.419 Jonathan Rea
FP2	1'55.669 Jonathan Rea	1'42.369 Toprak Razgatlıoğlu
FP3	1'55.975 Jonathan Rea	1'41.781 Toprak Razgatlıoğlu
Super poles	1'41.619 Jonathan Rea	1'40.408 Tom Sykes
Race 1	Rea, Redding, Davies
Warm up	1'42.325 Michael van der Mark
Superpole race	Van der Mark, Rea, Baz
Race 2	Davies, Van der Mark, Gerloff
All time lap record	1'41.619 Jonathan Rea

First Superpole for Sykes since Philipp Island 2020

To everyone's surprise, the Englishman managed to stay at the top of the hierarchy, despite last-minute improvements from Razgatlioglu and Rea, who briefly took over in first place. But the latter were however unable to do anything against Sykes, author of the 51st Superpole of his career, the last dating back to Philipp Island last year at the end of an incredible final lap.

On the second row of the grid, we find Scott Redding ahead of Alex Lowes, well recovered from his collision earlier in the morning with Christophe Ponsson, as well as Andrea Locatelli. Then follow on the third row Leon Haslam, author of a good performance despite a lap canceled for having exceeded the limits of the track, ahead of Michael Ruben Rinaldi and Michael van der Mark. Tenth place goes to Garrett Gerloff.

Beyond the top 10, we find Axel Bassani ahead of Kohta Nozane, Chaz Davies as well as Samuele Cavalieri, replacing Tito Rabat at short notice within the Barni Racing Team until the end of the season. Lucas Mahias is the highest ranked Frenchman on the grid, with 15th place, while Ponsson could not do better than 20th.

 

Superbike Catalonia – Superpole Results:

Classification credit: WorldSBK.com