Jonathan Rea will start tomorrow’s two 11th round World Superbike championship races from the second row of the grid after setting the sixth fastest time in this afternoon’s Superpole session at Moscow Raceway in Russia.

Pole position was taken by Carlos Checa, followed closely by Tom Sykes, with Eugene Laverty and Leon Haslam completing the front row, while Rea’s Honda World Superbike team-mate, Hiroshi Aoyama, took part in his first Superpole this afternoon.

The Japanese ace gelled immediately with the all-new 3.931km Moscow Raceway circuit 77km west of the Russian capital during a test on Wednesday and the 30-year-old had been running consistently in the top ten.

However, using Pirelli qualifiers for the first time, Aoyama experienced the chatter that often comes with the additional grip and, despite progressing to Superpole 2, he will start from the third row of the grid for tomorrow’s two 25-lap races.

Rea made the most of his first qualifying tyre, using it at the end of Superpole 1 and on its fifth lap, to post his best time of the weekend in Superpole 2. However, the 25-year-old from Northern Ireland also got chatter from his second qualifier and was unable to improve his time.

Jonathan Rea – P6, 1m35.237s

We made an improvement today, especially in the second free practice, when I really started to gel with the bike. We never really got too stressed but, in the back of our minds, we knew we weren’t really where we wanted to be – like challenging for the podium. We found a lot with our race option tyre and, in Superpole 2, my time would’ve been good enough for the front row. But in Superpole 3 the qualifier developed a bit of rear chatter when I opened the throttle, which wasn’t a perfect situation. But second row will do, and we would have definitely taken that yesterday when it looked like we were really struggling. It’ll be really tough racing over 25 laps here – it’s quite physical, tight and twisty, and passing places will be few and far between, so a good start will be needed and we’ll make a plan from there. Looks like everyone will be on the same tyre, so that’s one less thing to worry about, and we’ll wait and see what happens tomorrow.

Hiroshi Aoyama – P12, 1m35.834s

Finally I got to Superpole and even to Superpole 2, and it was good to be there. I’m happy that I have a better feeling with the set-up than I had yesterday. It allowed me to go a bit faster today and the race tyre felt even better than the qualifying tyre, which was a pity. But we will start from 12th in the middle of the grid tomorrow and I hope we can have two good races. All the guys have been working really hard so I want to make two good results to thank them for their efforts.

Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator

Overall I think we can be quite happy with the results from both riders today. Hiroshi finally made it to Superpole and, not only that, he got through to Superpole 2 as well. He had a little chatter problem on the qualifying tyre so couldn’t improve further but he’s on the third row and he has pace to run in the top ten tomorrow. Jonathan had a difficult session this morning but made a big change with the front tyre in the free practice. He got into a rhythm which brought him up to the front runners again. Sixth place is a good result for him and we think a podium is possible tomorrow.

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