Donington WSBK: Rea breezes to pole in the wet

Kawasaki rider Rea was more than a second faster than the opposition during Saturday morning practice, and enjoyed a similar margin of dominance for much of the 15-minute superpole session on a slippery track.

The Ulsterman went more than 1.3 seconds clear at the halfway point of the session with a lap of 1m40.451s, before improving to a 1m40.101s next time around.

Rea's rivals began to close the deficit after that, with BMW rider Michael van der Mark emerging as the strongest challenger with a time just under a second slower than the reigning champion.

As the chequered flag fell, Rea failed to improve on his final lap, but he held on to pole by a still-comfortable 0.525s margin with van der Mark only managing a 1m40.626s at the end.

Tom Sykes set an outright fastest first sector on the second BMW, but he couldn't keep up that pace as his final lap progressed and wound up 0.662s shy of former teammate Rea.

Alex Lowes made it two Kawasakis in the top four, albeit 1.2s slower than Rea, narrowly edging out Friday pacesetter Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha) to lead the second row of the grid.

Ducati rider Scott Redding suffered a crash in morning practice and could only manage sixth in qualifying, a little under two seconds off the pace, but around half a second clear of teammate Michael Ruben Rinaldi in eighth.

Splitting the two works Panigale V4 Rs on the grid is the lead Honda of Leon Haslam, seventh-fastest despite a crash at Coppice.

Chaz Davies (Go Eleven Ducati) and Lucas Mahias (Puccetti Kawasaki) completed the top 10.

Title contender Toprak Razgatlioglu suffered a disastrous session on the factory Yamaha, managing only 13th place - two spots behind teammate Andrea Locatelli - with a time almost three seconds off the pace.

Faring even worse was the second Honda of Alvaro Bautista in 16th place, 3.5s down on Rea.

Qualifying results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	1	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	1'40.101
2	60	Michael van der Mark	BMW	1'40.626	0.525
3	66	Tom Sykes	BMW	1'40.763	0.662
4	22	Alex Lowes	Kawasaki	1'41.351	1.250
5	31	Garrett Gerloff	Yamaha	1'41.393	1.292
6	45	Scott Redding	Ducati	1'42.067	1.966
7	91	Leon Haslam	Honda	1'42.206	2.105
8	21	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	Ducati	1'42.587	2.486
9	7	Chaz Davies	Ducati	1'42.630	2.529
10	44	Lucas Mahias	Kawasaki	1'42.658	2.557
11	55	Andrea Locatelli	Yamaha	1'42.683	2.582
12	47	Axel Bassani	Ducati	1'42.801	2.700
13	54	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Yamaha	1'42.840	2.739
14	12	Luke Mossey	Kawasaki	1'43.212	3.111
15	50	Eugene Laverty	BMW	1'43.345	3.244
16	19	Alvaro Bautista	Honda	1'43.625	3.524
17	32	Isaac Viñales	Kawasaki	1'44.630	4.529
18	53	Tito Rabat	Ducati	1'44.703	4.602
19	23	Christophe Ponsson	Yamaha	1'46.568	6.467
20	94	Jonas Folger	BMW	1'46.660	6.559
21	84	Loris Cresson	Kawasaki	1'46.775	6.674
View full results