Carlos Checa took his 6th Superpole victory of the 2011 World Superbike season today at Imola with a record breaking lap to outpace Jonathan Rea by less than a tenth of a second. Checa, who could clinch the 2011 World Superbike title tomorrow, will be joined on the front row by Rea, Noriyuki Haga, and Tom Sykes.
"Jonathan has been very strong all weekend and we knew it was going to be hard to beat him," Checa said. "I did a really good clean lap with no mistake, and when I saw the time, I was pretty sure that no one was going to beat it."
Eugene Laverty, Leon Haslam, Ayrton Badovini, and Sylvain Guintoli will start from row 2, while Marco Melandri only managed a 9th place finish.
Melandri is the only person who can prevent Checa from taking the title this weekend, but it doesn't look like Melandri has the pace. The Yamaha rider, who finished just .6 seconds behind Checa, has to keep Checa from gaining 26 points on him this weekend if he wants to keep the battle for the title alive.
