2009 WSBK Valencia Superpole - Pole Man Takes It By Nearly Three Quarters Of A Second

Only 19 riders started the Superpole session at Valencia, Shinya Nakano having qualified for the session, but unable to participate after breaking his collarbone. During the first 12 minute session, tactics were mixed, with some riders choosing to use one of their two qualifiers, to ensure they got another shot at a decent grid position. For Ruben Xaus that didn't work out well, crashing out on a fast lap before he had the chance to set a time good enough to qualify.

But Xaus wasn't the only big name to be dropped at the first time of asking: both Aprilia's Max Biaggi and Yamaha's Tom Sykes couldn't set times fast enough to get into Superpole 2, and will start from the 5th row of the grid.

Out after Superpole 1: Biaggi, Sykes, Xaus

Ben Spies set the fastest time in Superpole 2, in just a single fast lap. Remarkably, on his slowdown lap, he ran wide and off the track, and was forced to abandon his bike and run back to the pits. There were a lot of people pushing during the session, as Nori Haga almost came a cropper, having a big wobble round the back of the circuit, and Shakey Byrne crashed out while on a very fast lap, having set the 2nd fastest time at the first intermediate point.

Newcomer John Hopkins struggled a little with the qualifying format, finishing 16th, although a couple of fast laps were ruined when the rear started sliding round Valencia's notoriously tricky long downhill left hander before the final turn. 

Out after Superpole 2: Ryuichi Kiyonari, Leon Haslam, Jakub Smrz, Shakey Byrne, Broc Parkes, Troy Corser, Brendan Roberts, John Hopkins

Final Superpole session: Spies went out for a lap, then came straight back in again. Laconi made the early running, taking pole at the start of the session, while Nori Haga waited for the second half of the session to go out. But as fast as Haga was, he couldn't get close enough to Laconi's time to beat it. But with just a couple of minutes in the session left, Ben Spies went out for his first attempt at pole position.

At the first sector, he was already a quarter of a second quicker than the rest of the field, and by the end of the lap, Spies had smashed Max Neukirchner's lap record by over 0.6 seconds, to take his third straight pole in a row. Three poles from three attempts is a remarkable record, and with three wins out of four races, Ben Spies is looking virtually unstoppable.