KRT rider Loris Baz blasted his way to the top of Superpole qualifying for the first time in his career by taking his official Ninja ZX-10R to a new track best lap of 1’34.357 at Assen. Loris will be joined on the front row for Sunday’s races by his tem-mate Tom Sykes, who was third fastest. Kawasaki Racing Team’s SBK Evo rider David Salom was 15th after Superpole one.

In the second of two Superpole contests Baz made his push at exactly the right time on a qualifying tyre and ended up 0.488 seconds ahead of the next closest rider Sylvain Guintoli.

Sykes was third in Superpole having missed a final chance to set a fast lap as rains arrived with a few minutes of Superpole two still to go. Like his team-mate Baz, he is confident of his chances on raceday no matter the weather conditions, after making real progress in the wet during a test at Jerez, shortly before the previous round at Motorland Aragon.

The weather at Assen had been kind up to the end of Superpole two, with all sessions run in dry conditions, and Friday providing summery temperatures.

An oil spill on Saturday morning caused two stoppages for red flags in practice but the team has been able to prepare normally for what will be two 21-lap races on Sunday.

David Salom was unable to post what he felt would be his top pace in practice or qualifying at Assen, as he is still being held back to some degree by a right hand injury. With many fast direction changes at Assen he gets little rest through the 4.542km lap but he is confident he can have two strong races on Sunday.


Loris Baz:

“I am not sure why my lap time was so good but I had been feeling good all weekend and I was just missing one or two tenths from yesterday. I managed to do a good race simulation this morning but I was missing nearly every lap one or two tenths. I think at the beginning of Superpole I improved maybe six tenths over my best lap of the weekend. So I think we found something with my bike on a race tyre. Superpole was just perfect. I knew it was going to rain so I just pushed as hard as I could and I am really happy with this performance. I think we are better with a qualifier just because of all the changes we made in set-up this year. Also I feel I had less pressure when this moment comes. I really enjoyed the fast lap today and I really enjoyed the bike. Everything is about confidence because the bike is working well and every time on the bike you build confidence. When you have this confidence at the beginning then you know that you can always come back to a good point. I think that is the key, that we are fast everywhere. Being on the podium twice in Aragon made me very confident for all the season.”

Tom Sykes:

“We timed it well to get our race laps and qualifying laps in but the rain came a little bit too early for us in Superpole. It is a shame because I feel the qualifying tyre is my favourite one of the weekend because we really get to push the limits of the Ninja ZX-10R. Loris made a great job and he is starting on his first pole position but for us I think a front row start is what we need to be focusing on. Tomorrow hopefully we will get a good start and go racing twice and see what we can make of it. We will wake up tomorrow morning and see what we are blessed with for weather. Either way we will go racing. We are racing in a world championship and fighting for a world title so if it is wet or dry we are going to have to deal with it. Either way I feel we have a strong package with both myself and the bike. Things are working well over race distance here and tomorrow if it is wet then we will adjust the Ninja ZX-10R accordingly.”

David Salom:

“Here it has not been very good for my injured hand and so far it has been a very difficult weekend for me. My hand has not been too good because there is a lot of full throttle and you have to change direction a lot. The team has worked very well to help me with the bike set-up. In Motorland we started in 15th place, just like here but in the end we won the Evo classification. We will wait for the weather to see what us happening tomorrow but whatever it is we will try to be as close to the front as possible.”

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