Cortese bags maiden World Supersport pole at Aragon

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Sandro Cortese has continued his impressive adaptation to the World Supersport championship by taking pole position in his third round of 2018 campaign for Kallio Racing Yamaha ahead of Lucas Mahias.

The 2012 Moto3 world champion topped the short FP3 on Saturday morning at Aragon and followed that up with a flawless performance in Superpole qualifying to take pole position with a 1m 53.567s to edge out defending champion Mahias by 0.022s.

The GRT Yamaha rider looked set to take back provisional pole from the German rider with his final lap but lost over half a second in the final two sectors before bailing out of the lap. The French rider’s GRT Yamaha teammate Federico Caricasulo completes the front row at Aragon.

Raffaele De Rosa upset the Yamaha domination by heading up the second row for MV Agusta ahead of Thailand race winner Randy Krummenacher on the Bardahl Evan Bros Yamaha with Jules Cluzel qualifying in sixth for NRT Yamaha.

Kenan Sofuoglu’s injury stand-in rider Sheridan Morais led the Puccetti Kawasaki charge in seventh ahead of Profile Racing Triumph’s Luke Stapleford as MV Agusta’s Ayrton Badovini rounded out row three.

Hikari Okubo (Puccetti Kawasaki), Kyle Smith (Team Lorini Honda) and Michael Canducci (GoEleven Kawasaki) rounded out row four in Superpole 2.