Cycle News Staff | October 3, 2009
Yamaha’s Ben Spies set himself up perfectly for tomorrow’s crucial two World Superbike races at the Magny Cours circuit in France with a blistering lap in Superpole to earn his 10th pole position of the season.Spies lapped at a record clip of 1:37.709 and was the only man to lap under the 1:38 mark. More importantly, his championship rival Noriyuki Haga ended up fifth today and will start the two races from the second row.Second best today was Ten Kate Hannspree Honda’s Jonathan Rea and his 1:38.191. That put him just .005 of a second ahead of Haga’s teammate Michel Fabrizio, the Italian having led Spies for the best time in today’s earlier qualifying session today. Aprilia’s Max Biaggi will fill the front row of the grid for the races tomorrow.Row two will be led by Haga, the man who leads the championship by three points over Spies with two rounds and four races left to run. He will be joined on row two by Stiggy Motorsports Honda’s Leon Haslam, DFX Ducati’s Fonsi Nieto and BMW’s Troy Corser.Brit Shane Byrne and Jakub Smrz rounded out the top 10 in Superpole on their privateer Ducati 1098s.
Final Qualifying
1. Ben Spies (Yamaha) 1:37.709
2. Jonathan Rea (Honda) 1:38.191
3. Michel Fabrizio (Ducati) 1:38.196s
4. Max Biaggi (Aprilia) 1:38.235
5. Noriyuki Haga (Ducati) 1:38.365
6. Leon Haslam (Honda) 1:38.625
7. Fonsi Nieto (Ducati) 1:38.670
8. Troy Corser (BMW) 1:39.114
9. Shane Byrne (Ducati) 1:38.831
10. Jakub Smrz (Ducati) 1:38.844
