Bautista lands pole in late red flag shake-up

Full Superpole qualifying results at Assen World Superbike

Alvaro Bautista has secured another World Superbike pole position with the Aruba.it Racing Ducati as fortune shone on the Spaniard at Assen with a late red flag which denied the majority of his rivals a final lap.

The World Superbike championship leader produced a 1m 34.740s using Pirelli’s qualifying tyre to land provisional pole before a timely red flag prevented the rest of the grid from completing clean laps on the one-lap tyre.

Ryuichi Kiyonari and Toprak Razgatlioglu suffered separate offs at the fast Turn 15 which triggered the red flag with a little over 60 seconds of qualifying remaining.

Despite having his final lap hampered by the two riders going off in front of him, local favourite Michael van der Mark completed his lap to take second place for Pata Yamaha ahead of Markus Reiterberger who also completed his lap on the BMW before the red flag.

Alex Lowes could only manage the front of the second row for Pata Yamaha having battle for pole position earlier in the session ahead of Kawasaki’s Leon Haslam and BMW’s Tom Sykes who all had their final laps ended by the red flag.

With Chaz Davies in seventh place on the factory Ducati, reigning World Superbike champion Jonathan Rea was the biggest loser in the red flag stoppage as he failed to improve his time to leave him on the middle of the third row in eighth place.

Pedercini Kawasaki’s Jordi Torres completes row three ahead of Razgatlioglu having crashed heavily from his Puccetti Kawasaki.

Leon Camier claimed 11th spot for Moriwaki-Althea Honda ahead of Sandro Cortese who had his qualifying wrecked early by a heavy high-side coming out of Turn 12 on his opening run for GRT Yamaha, but fortunately the German rider was able to walk away unhurt. The off also ruined Rea’s first run as he hit debris from Cortese’s crash forcing him to pit to check for tyre damage.

Eugene Laverty has grabbed 13th place for Team Go Eleven Ducati ahead of Hector Barbera, who stands in for the injured Leandro Mercado at Orelac, with Alessandro Delbianco in 15th place.

Kiyonari, Marco Melandri (GRT Yamaha) and Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Barni Ducati) complete the starting grid for race one.