Riba on pole for WSS race

Kawasaki’s Pere Riba made the most of his track knowledge to grab pole position for tomorrow’s World Supersport race at Donington Park.

The Spaniard, who used to ride in British Supersport for the MSS Kawasaki Team, set a pole lap of 1.34.07 on his spare bike after crashing the number one bike in this morning’s session.

Riba’s team-mate Fabien Foret, who won the last round at Phillip Island using Riba’s number one engine, went down hard at Craner Curves right at the end of the session, and just like in this morning’s free practice, he wasn’t the only one to get the fast down hill left hander wrong.

Former 125 GP winner Simone Sanna lines up next to Riba on the grid, while championship leader Sofuoglu starts from third.

Craig Jones will be starting from 19th and would probably have moved up late on in the session but joined the extensive list of victims to fall at Craners with only a few minutes of the session remaining, but escaped unscathed.

The young Brit had a clutch problem with his number one bike, so had to revert to the second bike for the 45 minute second qualifying. However, the second bike also had its problems with the quickshifter not working, leaving him having to change gear manually.

“I was changing down the gears manually heading down Craners,” said Jones. “The bike became unsettled because of the extra movement I had to do and it upset the balance of the bike making me run off and crash.”