Qualifying three

Ryuichi Kiyonari 48.112

Shane Byrne 48.130

Buildbase BMW’s Ryuichi Kiyonari bagged his first MCE British Superbike pole position of the year at Knockhill after a 48.112 was enough to place him at the top of the timesheets. The former triple champ left it till the chequered flag came out to but down his flying lap, and in doing so snatched the number one spot of the grid from Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes.

The Aussie looked like he would clinch pole after a super quick 48.116, but Kiyo had the added 0.004 left in his tank to take the spoils. Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne completed the front row.

Initially it was Kiyo who edged ahead of Byrne to go into the provisional pole spot, with a tenth of a second over the Kawasaki rider. But Brookes wanted to spoil the party of the triple champs and with two minutes remaining clocked a 48.232 to lead the rest of the field.

Local rider Stuart Easton gave his home fans something to cheer about and with a minute and a half left of track time available went to the top of the timesheets with a 48.172. But that was only to last 20 seconds, as Brookes re-gained his impressive race pace to head the timesheets once again.

Just as the chequered flag appeared Kiyo went one-four thousandths of a second faster than the Bringelly rider to snatch pole, followed by Byrne. Row two is headed up by Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki’s Stuart Easton - with  the Scot  joined by GBmoto Kawasaki’s James Ellison and Buildbase BMW’s James Westmoreland.

Just as the final qualifying session got underway rain started to fall in sectors one and two, meaning the riders nervously went around the circuit, avoiding any white lines. But Millsport Ducati’s Jakub Smrz, Bathams BMW’s Michael Rutter and GBmoto’s Chris Walker all stayed on their bikes to complete row three.

In this mornings FP3 session Milwaukee Yamaha’s Tommy Bridewell failed to act on the black and orange flags for smoke coming from his bike, and because he ignored the flags he was penalised three grid places. So the Devizes lad will start race one from tenth on the grid.

Qualifying two

Shane Byrne 48.319

Josh Brookes 48.369

Byrne was the first rider to make an impact in Q2 with a 48.355 to go top of the timing-screens for the first time today. Ellison made a vast improvement from his previous sessions and went third fastest, just behind Brookes with five minutes remaining.

Kiyo was never too far off the pace, and comfortably made his way into the Q3, going ahead of Ellison and Brookes to take a provisional front row start. Elsewhere Hopkins was close to not progressing through to the final qualifying session as he was teetering in that tenth spot on the timesheets. But the American ended up being pushed out of Q2 by WD40’s Barry Burrell who completed a superb flying lap to place him ninth.

But Burrell’s joy was not to last as Smrz went from 12th to sixth pulling him back down to 11th. Bathams BMW Michael Rutter nearly narrowly missed out on going further – and as the chequered flag appeared sneaked into tenth by one-nine thousandths of a second, at the expense of Burrell and Quattro Plant Kawasaki’s Dan Linfoot.

It was not a good afternoon for the Tyco Suzuki team, as both John Hopkins and Josh Waters failed to make it through to the final qualifying outing – ending their chances of battling for a front row start.

Eliminated

Burrell

Linfoot

Hopkins

Muff

Cooper

Waters

Hickman

Farmer

Qualifying one

Ryuichi Kiyonari 48.086

Shane Byrne 48.593

Kiyonari only needed ten laps to go comfortably into Q2, with Brookes having the slight edge over Byrne - 0.05 seconds to be exact, to go in to second on the timesheets ahead of the Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki of the former triple champ.

Kiyo came out of his garage all guns blazing and went soaring to the top of the timesheets, quickly followed in succession by Byrne and Hopkins, but as everyone was improving their lap times the red flags came out as FFX Ian Hutchinson fell at Butchers while in 17th – but was able to walk away from the incident with nine minutes remaining.

Milwaukee Yamaha’s Tommy Bridewell had a nightmare of a start and on his outlap had to retire to the pits with a technical problem. His crew were in a race against time to get his bike ready to go back on track – and they did just that, and the Devizes rider was able to go up to fifth on the timesheets.

Farmer and Muff were hovering dangerously close to the elimination spots, but managed to hold their times to progress into Q2. Quattro Plant Kawasaki’s Howie Mainwaring was sat in 19th for most of the session, but couldn’t find that one-one hundredths of a second to go ahead of Muff, and was joined in the drop zone with Gearlink Kawasaki’s Ben Wilson, Zanotti, Kirkham and Ingram.

Jenny Tinmouth took a tumble ending her chance of progressing through to Q2 with 13 minutes remaining. But she managed to remount, but failed to make it into the top 18. She was joined in the drop zone by Hutchinson who slipped down to 23rd on the timesheets.

Eliminated

Mainwaring

Zanotti

Kirkham

Wilson

Hutchinson

Ingram

Tinmouth

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