2019 Imola World Superbike Superpole Results: Count The Red Flags

Michael Ruben Rinaldi opened the Superpole session by setting fire to his Ducati Panigale, summoning the red flags. The restart only shortened the session to twenty four minutes. Three and a half minutes into the restart, Sandro Cortese and Leon Camier crashed out at turn four and brought the red flags back out. Camier was taken to the medical centre.

Alvaro Bautista was the first to finally set a target lap, a 1:43.328, but Jonathan Rea chopped half a second off with a 1'45.754 and pitted back in. The Ducatis of Chaz Davies and Alvaro Bautista were consistently quicker in the first sectors, but couldn't match Rea's pace throughout the remainder of the lap. 

With eleven minutes remaining, everyone started to pit in for their qualifying tyres and with just under ten minutes left, the Kawasaki of Rea and Leon Haslam left early to put in some quiet laps on an empty track with their qualifying tyres on. Rea aborted his first fast lap after a turn four wobble and saved the tyre fir his second attempt and Haslam followed suit. Rea recorded a 1'45.754 almost a second quicker than his teammate Haslam, second quickest at that point.

As the rest of the riders flowed out of the pits, the Kawasaki pitted in to see Chaz Davies knock the pair down with a 1'45.180. As the clock ticked down, Alvaro Bautista was the only rider on pace to trouble the front row and with fifty seconds left, he knocked Haslam off the front row, securing third place on the grid.

The front row was a sandwich of Ducatis with a Kawasaki filling as Chaz Davies took pole position with a new outright record, half a second quicker than his 2016 circuit record, ahead of Jonathan Rea and Alvaro Bautista. The British second row was made up of Leon Haslam, Alex Lowes and Tom Sykes, Sykes not receiving the BMW go-faster parts previously promised for Imola. 

Results: