Mashel Al Naimi grabbed the last pole position of the season of Qatar SuperStock 600 by just one thousandth of a second at the Losail International Circuit on Friday. Al Naimi clocked 2:06.666 in his fastest lap of the day, only a milisecond ahead of Saeed Al Sulaiti.
"The bike still needs more settings. I tried to make a good lap time, but I couldn’t. I tried to push hard but on two occasions I felt that I crashed in slow corners and after three laps I had a problem with the brake. I think we need to make bleeding for the oil because the temperature is too hot. Let’s see tomorrow in the warm-up. I hope we can make good settings to ride easy with the bike because it is difficult to stay head to head with Saeed with this setting. Tomorrow's first race will be in hot condition and the second race will be held under better conditions. So we will see how everything will go," Al Naimi said on Friday after his run.
Al Sulaiti, who didn’t take part in the first Free Practice, was the only rider of the championship who competed with the same bike since the beginning of the season. However, he changed his bike after the issues he had in the previous round.
"Since the last race, I changed the bike because in the last round it had a drop in power and there was a misfire in the engine. After the bike was checked by the mechanics, they decided to replace the bike. I tested it on the last track day and I had a good feeling with it," Al Sulaiti said.
"In the second Free Practice, I had a strong rhythm. We did a small change in the setting to adapt the riding style with these hot conditions. In the Superpole, as you can see, only 0.001 difference with Mashel. So overall, I am really happy. The rhythm is really strong and we are ready for the race. Looking forward for tomorrow. I want to wish good luck for everybody for the races and congratulations to all the riders that did a great job from the last to the first and improved a lot during this championship round by round. Regarding the championship title, I think that both Mashel and myself deserve the title, but only one winner can be. So let’s see who the winner will be tomorrow," Al Sulaiti added.
"I want to thank my sponsors Ooredoo, QMMF and Losail Circuit Sports Club for this great championship," Al Sulaiti said.
Nasser Al Malki will start from the third position in the grid as he clocked a time of 2:05.645.
The 17-year-old Abdullah Al Qubaisi is continuing his great performance and he ended in fourth place in the Superpole with a time of 2:06.057.
Fahad Al Sowaidi was sixth, followed by Ali Al Shammari in seventh place.
