World Superbike fans are in for a treat tomorrow as the top three riders fighting for the championship all qualified on the front row for Sunday’s two races at the legendary Nürburgring circuit. WSBK current series leader Marco Melandri qualified third on the grid, behind Max Biaggi and Tom Sykes, after an exciting Superpole session at the 5.137-km track.

With three rounds remaining in this year’s series – and a maximum of 150 points on offer – the 2012 WSBK championship is reaching a critical phase, where any small mistakes can cost dearly. With glorious weather and blue skies greeting the 16 participants that had made it through to the Superpole eliminators, it was Melandri who set his stall out first, with a 1:54.711 time posted on his first flying lap – the fastest of the weekend so far.

The red flags came out soon after and there was a short delay caused by debris on the track due to a crash by Kawasaki rider David Salom. Action was soon resumed, but both Marco and team-mate Leon – who had set the second fastest provisional time behind Melandri at that point – didn’t return to the circuit for the remainder of the session, as they had already done enough to make it safely through to SP2.

In SP2, Marco and Leon were out on track early, with Marco setting an amazing time of 1:54.056 on his first flying lap – again the fastest time of the weekend so far. Unfortunately, still struggling with the shoulder injury sustained at the previous round in Moscow a fortnight ago, Leon crashed out of contention on his ‘out’ lap and was unable to get back on track for the remainder of the session. He would therefore be forced to start from the third row. Marco’s scorching early lap on the S 1000 RR was only beaten by one other rider, so he finished the session in P2.

SP3 saw the field narrowed to eight riders for a final 10-minute dash to determine grid positions for the front two rows. With all the top riders using their final qualifier tyre, there was plenty of fun and games during the ‘out’ lap as no-one was willing to give their rivals a fast ‘tow’ around the ‘Ring. Immediately the laps were hot, with Max Biaggi posting 1:53.855 on his first flying lap, closely followed by Marco, who also went faster than he’d done during the first two sessions. He also dipped into the 1:53 bracket, with a blisteringly quick time of 1:53.912.

Pole specialist Tom Sykes then went marginally faster than Marco, but not fast enough to take away Biaggi’s first WSBK pole of the season. With their tyres only really lasting for one flying lap, these were the final positions at the session’s end, which means that the top three championship contenders will all be lining up alongside each other at noon tomorrow when the first race begins. With Melandri a true racer rather than a qualification specialist, expect some spectacular action from him on the RR at the ‘Ring tomorrow…

Marco Melandri:

“I am very happy to be on the front row here at Nürburgring, which is my second home race. I was always struggling in the qualifying but today I had a good feeling with the qualifying tyre. My BMW was working very well. The two races tomorrow will be very long. It will not be easy for the tyre and the riders so we will see. But it is a good point to start from the front row. It was nice to bring the BMW to the first row at the home round today but my goal is to be successful tomorrow.”

Leon Haslam:

“In Superpole 2 I put on a qualifying tyre. With the extra grip the engine braking changed quite a lot. Due to that I made a mistake in turn one. I carried on pushing and trying to get a lap in but at the end of the fast straight the front brake locked and down I went. I will get some more physio treatment now and have a rest before tomorrow so all should be good for the races. If we can sort out the little issues we had this weekend we can definitely run at the front and go for the win as normal. It wasn’t an ideal qualifying with 12th position but a good start tomorrow can make all the difference.”

Andrea Dosoli (Head of Race Operations):

“For one side it was a very good Superpole, for the other side it was unlucky but overall I am really happy because compared to yesterday we have made huge improvements with both riders in terms of race pace as well as flying laps. Unfortunately Leon had a crash while he was pushing but we are sure that tomorrow he will start as good as usual and fight to get back the positions he lost in Superpole. Marco and his crew have done a great job today. They have fixed a few issues Marco had complained about yesterday and we are almost ready for the races. But we believe that we still need to improve a few tenths because we have seen that our competitor Max Biaggi is very fast. This is the target for tonight and we want to be ready for tomorrow.”

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