Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki's Shane Byrne set down a marker for this afternoon's qualifying session by finishing the final MCE British Superbike free practice session as fastest.

Samsung Honda's Alex Lowes set an early bench mark in the session, which was the fastest lap of the weekend at the time, and went on to better his lap time moments later to a 1'26.340. However, this wasn't enough to hold on to quickest, as Milwaukee Yamaha's James Ellison went over a tenth of a second quicker to head the time sheets with under five minutes remaining.

Local hero, Byrne, posted fastest sector times in one, two and three and consequently posted the fastest time of the session and the weekend, a 1'26.025, just over half a second shy of the lap record held by Josh Brookes.

Buildbase BMW's James Westmoreland continued the good form he showed this morning, ending the final practice session in fourth place, ahead of Snetterton race winner, Josh Brookes. Westmoreland's teammate Jon Kirkham ended the session in sixth, 0.681 of a second adrift of Shakey's fastest time.

Samsung Honda's Ryuichi Kiyonari jumped up to seventh in the closing stages of the session, with his lap time of 1'26.874. The Japanese rider ended 0.179 ahead of fellow Showdown challenger, Chris Walker. Rounding out the top ten was Michael Rutter and Jakub Smrz.

The only faller throughout the session was Australian Josh Waters. The Milwaukee Yamaha rider tipped off at Sheene Curve but despite getting the bike back, the team were unable to repair his R1 and the Aussie will be on the back foot going into qualifying, still desperate for time on track with this being his first visit to the GP circuit.

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