Ben Young continued his impeccable qualifying run on Friday, securing his fourth BS Battery Pole Position in a row to begin the fourth round of the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship at Atlantic Motorsport Park, presented by Pro Cycle and Canadian Kawasaki.
After starting the opening three rounds from the front of the GP Bikes Pro Superbike grid, Young’s perfect streak of 2024 came under some threat when he encountered a mechanical issue late in FP1, allowing rival Alex Dumas to top the session and carry a bit of extra momentum into Q1.
The Van Dolder’s Home Team BMW squad quickly resolved the issue though, and it took Young only three minutes to jump to the front of a scorching-hot Q1 as he leapfrogged Sam Guerin and Jordan Szoke.
The defending champion was safe to rest for the remainder of the session, with the top six of Young, Guerin, Szoke, Dumas, David MacKay, and Mavrick Cyr all within a comfortable range of earning a top-ten spot in Q2.
Sport Bike frontrunners Andrew Van Winkle and Sebastien Tremblay would improve their times enough to later join that group, pushing local favourite John Fraser and star rookie Connor Campbell onto the cut line. However, both would sneak through at the expense of Elliot Vieira in eleventh, setting the top-ten for BS Battery Q2.
It was there where the tactics shifted at the front of the grid, with Sam Guerin and later Alex Dumas trying to tuck in behind Young for a tow around the 2.5 km circuit, though Young quickly wised up to it and backed out of his opening few laps.
That cat-and-mouse game allowed Szoke to take the early lead in Q2, but it was short-lived as Young promptly returned to the front with the first 1:07 lap of the weekend, surpassing it just one lap later with a time of 1:07.702.
The lead quartet would stay in the same order for majority of Q2 before Dumas put in a pair of late flyers with under five minutes to go, climbing to second but still 0.618 seconds behind Young as no one could touch the three-time Canada Cup winner.
“Obviously the races are the focus, but qualifying is such an important part of the weekend so it’s always nice to start at the front,” Young said. “I have a big week coming up [at Suzuka] so I didn’t really want to risk it any more than I did, but we put down a couple good laps and were able to keep the BMW on pole.”
The 17th pole of Young’s career was also enough to clinch the season-long BS Battery Pole Position Award, giving him a 20-point advantage over Szoke with only 20 points remaining and Young owning the tiebreaker.
“That’s really great news. It’s awesome that BS Battery sponsors the series and we’re really happy to have them on board, so it’s a nice award to add heading into the weekend,” Young said.
Dumas would settle for second in his first trip to AMP aboard the Economy Lube Ducati, a result that brought him mixed emotions ahead of race one.
“Most of our qualifying was just about setup, because we’ve really been struggling the last two days,” Dumas admitted. “It’s not pole, but it’s not third or worse, so I’ll take it. The four of us should still be really close and it should be a fun couple of races.”
Completing the front row was Szoke, who avoided the early Q2 antics to put in a strong time all on his own for CKM Kawasaki.
“I saw a bit of a freight train behind Ben, so I just tried to jump in after the queue and put a good lap in,” Szoke said. “Alex managed to squeak by me at the end there, and no one was catching Ben today, but it’s a super close difference between the front four so hopefully we can take advantage of that tomorrow.”
Missing out on a front row spot was Guerin, who ran in the top-three for almost the entire qualifying process before a late crash in Q2 left him relegated to fourth.
The EFC Group BMW rider was thankfully unhurt and should be good to go for race one on Saturday, with the top four separated by less than a second through qualifying.
Completing the top five and centering the second row will be MacKay, who ended both Q1 and Q2 in a strong fifth for ODH Snow City Cycle Honda.
Ending the second row will be rookie sensation Cyr, posting a career-best Superbike effort in just his second weekend with the Economy Lube Ducati program.
Local favourite Fraser could only marginally improve in Q2, putting himself seventh on the grid for his home round aboard the RLS Contracting Suzuki as he tries to make up ground and latch onto the lead group this weekend.
The feature class will now prepare for the first half of their doubleheader at AMP at approximately 3 pm local time (2 pm ET) on Saturday, with Young chasing a fourth victory of the season from pole position.
Full results can be found on the series’ official website.
For more information on the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship, visit www.csbk.ca.
Main picture: Ben Young (1) will start this weekend’s Superbike races from pole position after topping BS Battery Pole Position qualifying at Atlantic Motorsport Park on Friday. Photo credit: Rob O’Brien / CSBK.
Source: Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship
