Althea Ducati's Carlos Checa continues to dominate the World Superbike field at Misano, setting the fastest time despite an early crash in the final qualifying session ahead of this afternoon's Superpole session with former MotoGP rival Max Biaggi giving chase.
The Spaniard lapped in 1'35.609 compared to Biaggi's 1'35.931 and the pair are the only two inside 1'36s as Alstare Suzuki's Michel Fabrizio, in third, went round in 1'36.052 while PBM Kawasaki's Joan Lascorz has found some serious time, jumping from the foot of the timesheet into fourth place.
BMW's Leon Haslam also found some pace overnight as was sitting in fifth place for the last 15 minutes of the session until Yamaha's Marco Melandri leapfrogged him by a tenth of a second. Tom Sykes, on the second works Kawasaki, is seventh and only a quarter of a second in arrears while the satellite S1000RR of Ayrton Badovini in eighth.
Melandri's team-mate Eugene Laverty improved his time by two tenths to jump into ninth place on a 1'36.437 while Supersonic Ducati's Maxime Berger rounds out the top ten. Troy Corser, who crashed heavily yesterday and did it again at turn four today, is 13th.
Alitalia Aprilia's Leon Camier did scramble into the top ten early on but slipped down to 15th fastest while Jonathan Rea crashed at the start of the session and only found a tenth to take 16th. He is having a hole in his elbow patched up in the medical centre.
