Reiterberger confirms his 5th position
Markus Reiterberger gave everything he could to please his German audience here at the Nürburgring, against very good riders with a lot of experience. He finished in 5th position, while Randy Pagaud progressed to 17th and Beau Beaton to 19th.
Just in front of Markus, there will be tomorrow on the first row of the starting grid two Ducatis and two BMWs. Davide Giugliano (Althea Racing Ducati) was the fastest and will start from pole position, with on his side Sylvain Barrier (BMW Motorrad Italia), Danilo Petrucci (Barni Racing Team Ducati) and Lorenzo Zanetti (BMW Motorrad Italia).
Markus did a very good job during these two days of qualifying. He is the only German rider in the four categories of the Superbike World Championship. Tomorrow, many local spectators will surely be interested in his race.
Randy progressed well compared to Friday, as did his team mate Beau. Both men were much faster than they were the day before, which is a nice achievement and let us expect good things for tomorrow.
Michel Garnier (team owner): “Randy has done a good job with the 17th position. He is progressing well and he knows how he can improve. If it rains tomorrow, he is good on the wet so everything is possible. Markus did very well; he confirmed his position of yesterday. He is fifth, he needs a good start and after that he needs to stay with the good group. The guys in front have a lot of experience while it is the first season in this category for Markus. Beau has progressed little by little, he hasn’t crashed this weekend. I hope he stays on the bike tomorrow and scores 1 or 2 points, it is possible.”
Markus Reiterberger: “My qualifying session was very hard. First I went with old tyres and I could see that I went back until the 9th position. I put some new tyres and I made some little mistakes during the first few laps. Then I went faster and faster. I was finally in fifth position, it was very hard qualifying.”
Randy Pagaud: “I started the session with used tyres and I was 0.6 from my time of this morning. I went back into the pits at half distance and put a new tyre. On the track I was waiting for a faster rider to follow, and after a while it was the case with Staring. I did three laps behind him and could lap in 2′1.7 which gave me the 17th position. I am happy.”
Beau Beaton: “This morning, we sort of made the wrong change after yesterday. With no so much track time we made some guesswork. This afternoon we made a good change. We made a good step forward, 1.1 or 1.2 seconds I think. Now we know where we need to head to make it better for tomorrow.”
Qualifying results:
1. Davide Giugliano Ducati 1098R (Althea Racing) 1′58.763
2. Sylvain Barrier BMW S1000RR (BMW Motorrad Italia)1′59.259
3. Danilo Petrucci Ducati 1098R (Barni Racing Team) 1′59.268
4. Lorenzo Zanetti BMW S1000RR (BMW Motorrad Italia) 1′59.812
5. Markus Reiterberger BMW S1000RR (Garnier Alpha Racing Team) 1′59.933
6. Lorenzo Baroni Ducati 1098R (Althea Racing) 2′00.219
7. Andrea Antonelli Honda CBR1000RR (Team Lorini) 2′00.424
8. Niccolò Canepa Ducati 1098R (Lazio MotorSport) 2′00.448
9. Ferruccio Lamborghini Honda CBR1000RR (Ten Kate Junior Team) 2′00.597
10. Sheridan Morais Kawasaki ZX-10R (Lorenzini by Leoni) 2′00.603
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17. Randy Pagaud BMW S1000 RR (Garnier Racing Team) 2′01.724
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19. Beau Beaton BMW S1000 RR (Garnier Racing Team) 2′01.864
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