WorldSBK Jerez Superpole: Toprak Razgatlıoğlu takes first pole position of 2021
Toprak Razgatlıoğlu stormed to pole position today in Jerez.
Toprak Razgatlıoğlu has taken his second-ever WorldSBK pole position at Jerez following a surprise late lap which fired him to the top of the timesheets, recovering 0.250 seconds in the last sector alone to take pole position and finishing the lap with a 0.1+ second gap in sector four to the rest of the field.
In the last moments of the session it was a Kawasaki 1-2 with Lowes leading Rea by 0.075, Lowes being so far up the front hands Rea some assistance ahead of the race as he will be able to use Lowes to stop Toprak from getting through and attacking Rea provided Lowes can consistently run in P2, if Rea were to win in a Kawasaki 1-2 Rea would gain a huge 9 championship points over Razgatlıoğlu which adds to the importance of having Lowes there to fight.
Yamaha had other ideas, heading into his pole position setting lap Toprak was way down the order outside of the top 10 with a 1:40.3 lap time and knew if he wanted to continue his title fight he had to push hard, after three sectors he was on for a projected P4 start until he pulled 0.250 seconds out of nowhere to take P1 and only his second ever pole position foiling Kawasaki’s plans.
Leading row two is the Aruba.it Ducati boys of Redding then Rinaldi, both riders are in form currently and are within a chance of a podium following their strong pace this weekend which looks really good for the race with Locatelli in P6 meaning we have a top six of riders who are more than fast enough to battle for race victories and podiums, don’t miss Race One later today!
On his WorldSBK return Loris Baz has performed miracles with a P6 in FP3 and now a P7 in qualifying, really impressive to see the Frenchman do so well after racing in MotoAmerica all season long being beaten by Jake Gagne, makes you wonder how well Gagne could do over in Europe on a Yamaha…
Joining Baz on row three were the HRC boys as Garrett Gerloff rounded out the top 10.
Full results –
Featured image – Yamaha
