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Sunday Guide: Aragón

Saturday, 2 April 2016 17:09 GMT

All you need to know about Saturday's fastest riders ahead of Race 2 at MotorLand

Tissot-Superpole – Tom Sykes (Race 1: 3rd)

It was the 32nd career pole for Tom Sykes and his fourth at Aragon, making this the second track on which Tom was able to start from pole four times (2012 to 2014, 2016) after Misano (2011, 2012, 2014, 2015). This was also his 49th front row, he has 50 to go to reach the all-time record of Troy Corser (99).

In Race 1, Sykes recorded his fifth Aragon podium: another one in Race 2 would make this his third most successful track. So far he has climbed on the podium 9 times at Donington, 7 at Imola and 6 at Magny Cours.

The last time Sykes finished an Aragon race off the podium was back in 2012, when he was 8th in Race 2: since then only two retirements stopped him have stopped him climbing on the rostrum.

2nd –Sylvain Guintoli (Race 1: 9th)

Sylvain Guintoli had waited for a second on the grid since the 2014 Laguna Seca round, when the poleman was equally Tom Sykes. This was his 21st front row appearance, the first for Yamaha.

Guintoli has started from the front row with five different manufacturers in his career (Suzuki, Ducati, Aprilia, Honda and Yamaha), making him only the third rider in history to achieve such a feat. Before him was Troy Corser, on the front row for six different manufacturers (Aprilia, BMW, Ducati, Petronas, Suzuki, Yamaha) and Leon Haslam (Aprilia, BMW, Ducati, Honda, Suzuki).

Yamaha had waited for a front row start since the 2011 Algarve round, when Eugene Laverty and Marco Melandri were third and fourth on the grid (4-bike front row).

3rd – Alex Lowes (Race 1: 8th)

Alex Lowes equalled his best career grid spot, third, which he’d recorded at Buriram last year.

Three races into the season, he hasn’t outqualified his team-mate yet: last year his qualifying score against his team-mate (Randy de Puniet) was an impressive 13-0.

4th – Chaz Davies (Race 1: Winner)

10th career win for Davies, the first since Jerez 2015/2: now he has reached the 25th all-time spot, shared with Fabrizio Pirovano and Chris Vermeulen. This was win #319 for Ducati.

Four wins, six podiums and 162 points (out of nine starts) make Davies the absolute king of the Aragon track: no other rider has won more than twice here. Like in Race 2 last year and in 2013, Chaz won and set the fastest race lap.

Davies won with a 4.168 second margin over Jonathan Rea: in 2013 he was able to put 5.216 seconds in Race 1 and 5.035 seconds in Race 2 between himself and Sylvain Guintoli.

5th – Jonathan Rea (Race 1: 2nd)

In Race 1, Rea recorded his 70th podium placement: now he is only one shy of double World Champion Max Biaggi, who holds the seventh all-time spot.

With a 33 point lead, Rea will extend his leadership in the Championship to 30 races after the Aragon weekend, the third longest streak in the history of the Championship.

For the first time after eight straight races, Rea wasn’t able to lead a single lap in Race 1.

Qualifying on the second row meant he put an end to his personal best string of races on the front row, which was five after Buriram.

Other notes:

British riders –like in the second Buriram race- locked out the podium for the 24th time in history. 16 of these have come since the beginning of last season. Last year the Aragon podium featured only British riders in both races.

Jonathan Rea is the only rider who has been able to stand on the podium at every race this season

Xavi Fores recorded his best career result in Race 1: fourth, up from the fifth and sixth places he scored on this same track last year

In the five races run so far this year, Jordi Torres finished only seventh (2 times) or eighth (3 times). The seventh place recorded in Race 1 is BMW’s best result at Aragon since Davies won Race 2 back in 2013

For the first time since the WorldSBK championship first visited Aragon, back in 2011, there were no Aprilias on the front row of the starting grid

Kawasaki and Aprilia are now tied for Aragon podiums: 10 each. BMW and Ducati follow on 5

After Race 1, Kawasaki and Yamaha are tied for races on the podium in WorldSBK history with 221 each. They trail Ducati (520) and Honda (329).