Front row start at the home round: Team BMW Motorrad Motorsport had a successful Superpole qualifying at Nürburgring (GER). Factory rider Marco Melandri (ITA) will start the third last round of the 2012 FIM Superbike World Championship from third on the grid, missing out on pole position by only 0.057 seconds. His team-mate Leon Haslam (GBR) was denied a top result by a crash in Superpole 2 and will start from 12th on his BMW S 1000 RR. In today’s second qualifying practice and free practice sessions both riders were already fast. Leon was still suffering pain from his injured left shoulder but overcame it again. At the start of Superpole 1, both riders went out on race tyres, setting the fastest and second fastest time. After four minutes, the session had to be red flagged due to a crash. After the restart both Marco and Leon stayed in the garage as their times qualified them comfortably for Superpole 2. In this second part, both riders went out on qualifying tyres. While Marco topped the time sheets again with a temporary new lap record of 1:54.056 minutes, Leon crashed in the last sector and had to settle for 12th. In the deciding Superpole 3, Marco went out on his second qualifying tyre and bettered his lap time to 1:53.912 minutes, qualifying third on the front row. Michel Fabrizio and Ayrton Badovini (both ITA) of the BMW Motorrad Italia GoldBet SBK Team will start tomorrow’s races from 13th and 17th respectively.
Marco Melandri
Fastest lap Qualifying Practices: 1:55.182 min (P2) / Fastest lap FP: 1:55.233 min (P4) / Fastest lap Superpole 3: 1:53.912 min (P3)
“I am very happy to be in the front row here at Nürburgring, which is my second home race. In the past I have always struggled in qualifying but today I had a good feeling with the qualifying tyre. My BMW was working very well. The two races tomorrow will be very long. It will not be easy for the tyre or the riders so we will see but the front row is a good place to start from. It was nice to bring the BMW to the front row for the home round today but my goal is to be successful tomorrow.”
Leon Haslam
Fastest lap Qualifying Practices: 1:55.541 min (P7) / Fastest lap FP: 1:55.385 min (P5) / Fastest lap Superpole 2: Crash (P12)
“In Superpole 2 with the extra grip of the qualifyer tyre the engine braking changed quite a lot. Due to that I made a mistake in turn one. I carried on pushing trying to get a lap in but at the end of the fast straight the front brake locked and down I went. I will get some more physio treatment now and have a rest before tomorrow so all should be good for the races. If we can sort out the few remaining little issues we had this weekend we can definitely run at the front and go for the win. It wasn’t an ideal qualifying with 12th position but a good start tomorrow can make it up.”
Andrea Dosoli – Head of Race Operations
“For one side it was a very good Superpole, for the other side it was an unlucky one but overall I am really happy because compared to yesterday we have made huge improvements with both riders in terms of race pace as well as in terms of a flying lap. Unfortunately Leon had a crash while he was pushing but we are sure that tomorrow he will start as well as usual and fight to get back the positions he lost in Superpole. Marco and his crew have done a great job today. They have fixed a few issues Marco had complained about yesterday and we are almost ready for the races. We believe that we still need to improve a few tenths to go Max Biaggi’s pace. That is the target for our work to do tonight and we want to be ready for tomorrow.”
