In winning his 26th career Superpole today KRT rider Tom Sykes is now tied with legend Troy Bayliss as the second most successful rider in the history of WSB qualifying. Jonathan Rea’s second place in Superpole made it a strong 1-2 on home ground for each KRT competitor.

Sykes made a remarkable showing with his rear qualifying tyre in Superpole 2 to take a new track best with his 1’27.071 lap, which also earned him the best possible starting slot for Sunday’s two WSB races.

Rea was only 0.237 seconds behind his team-mate in Superpole and each rider has now taken two pole positions this year: Sykes at Assen and Donington, Rea at Phillip Island and Buriram. Tom has now won three of the last four Donington Superpole competitions.

Overcast and generally cool weather conditions on the second day welcomed just one free practice session before Superpole 1 took place, starting at 12 noon. Both Sykes and Rea had already qualified into Superpole 2 and each made the most of the dry track conditions to post their fast laps.

Race distance is scheduled to be 23 laps of the 4.023km circuit in each of Sunday’s two WSB races.

Tom Sykes:

“We have made some good steps here. We made small steps in Aragon and Assen, some bigger ones at Imola, and bigger ones again here in Donington, so I am happy. The Superpole win is nice and we have a good grid slot for tomorrow. I am very impressed with the lap time, although I came over the line and saw 1’27.0 – and then kicked myself because it should have been a 1’26! It’s just that the qualifying tyre caught me out in some areas and pushed me off line. But you cannot be greedy and I am very happy. Our race set-up seems acceptable as well. I have now gone joint second with Bayliss in Superpole wins now and that is nice. I am getting amongst some legends, all time greats, people I admired when I grew up racing. Credit to Kawasaki and myself, because we have certainly got the speed. We could see in Superpole 1 that few riders were getting two laps out of their tyres. Into my second lap, exiting turn one, she was sliding nicely. We definitely used the potential of our rear qualifier and for that I am happy. We did enough to make it count but tomorrow is another day and we have changing weather forecasts all the time. But we are in a good position.”

Jonathan Rea:

“I was really happy with the Superpole lap. I made a few small mistakes but I honestly do not think I could have done any better. I was a little bit surprised to be second because we made a change for Superpole. We tried a different rear shock and after using the race tyre we could see it really didn’t work. I had a lot of rear chatter under acceleration. So the guys quickly changed the rear shock in the last minutes of Superpole. I tried the different setting and it worked well, so I think it sets us in a different way for tomorrow’s races. We are still lacking a little bit but the beauty is we get another crack in warm-up tomorrow. It is being held at a bit more of a sensible time than the Europe schedule, so we might be a little more relevant. We will see what the weather does. But I am happy to be on the front row because it gives us the best possible chance of a good start. My team-mate is so strong here, over one lap and also over the distance. To think about winning the race we still have to catch him.”

David Salom made it to Superpole 2 via Superpole 1, and finally qualified tenth, putting three Ninja ZX-10Rs inside the top ten places. Roman Ramos (Team Go Eleven Kawasaki) is 16th on the grid; Christophe Ponsson (Kawasaki Team Pedercini) is 17th.