At the Spanish Round on Saturday afternoon a delayed – and ultimately curtailed – final session of the day saw one event rider Markus Reiterberger (Van Zon Remeha BMW) secure a start from pole position in Sunday’s final race of the Superstock 1000 European Championship. The German rider is joined on the front row by STK1000 regulars Mike Jones (Aruba.it Racing – Junior Team) and Roberto Tamburini (PATA Yamaha Official STK 1000 Team).
Former WorldSBK man Reiterberger (in photo1) registered a pole lap of 1’42.113 shortly before the session was ended two minutes early due to a red flag.
There was also drama earlier in proceedings when midway through QP Jones crashed at turn 5 and did not reappear. He held provisional pole at that point but was eventually outpaced by Reiterberger by just 0.023s. Tamburini took third place on the grid with a lap time 0.068s off that of Reiterberger on a tightly contested front row.
Federico Sandi (Berclaz Racing Team) qualified fourth despite also crashing in QP and he is to be joined on row two by Florian Marino (Pata Yamaha Official STK1000 Team) and Illia Mykhalchyk (TripleM Racing).
Florian Alt (Team Yamaha MGM), Jeremy Guarnoni (Pedercini Racing) and Alejandro Medina Mayo (Cardoso School Racing) are on the third row, with Federico D’ Annunzio (FDA Racing Team) heading row four – having completed the topten.
The session was redflagged two minutes before the scheduled finish after Glenn Scott (Agro On-Benjan-Kawasaki) ran off track and into the gravel.
The three riders in contention for the title on Sunday are fifth placed grid starter Marino, Michael Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Junior Team) and Toprak Razgatlioglu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing). Rinaldi, who leads the standings by eight points from Marino, will start in 14th on the grid, whilst Razgatlioglu starts from 12th with a six point deficit to Marino in third place in the championship ahead of the final race.
In the European Supersport, which is held in the context of the World series, Alex Zaccone and his MV Agusta (photo2)snatched the best laptime, which is also the 13th in the world qualifying. Second position for Soomer from Estonia ahead of Hartog from The Netherlands.
