Jason O’Halloran (McAMS Yamaha) claimed pole position for this afternoon’s British Superbike Championship race at Brands Hatch, the Australian coming out on top in challenging conditions.

But their were mixed fortunes for some of the other title contenders with championship leader Tommy Bridewell (BeerMonster Ducati) in seventh, one place behind Kyle Ryde (LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha) whilst Bridewell’s team-mate Glenn Irwin could only manage 17^th.

The sunny morning skies gave way to heavy rain prior to qualifying but, after a short delay, the rain stopped and the session got underway albeit on an extremely wet track, lap times in Q1 some 13s off a good, dry lap time where title contender Leon Haslam (ROKiT BMW Motorrad Team) led the way with a 1’38.197.

The 12-minute Q2 session saw light rain fall once more with Josh Brookes (FHO Racing BMW) stopping early at Westfield and Irwin back into the pits after just a sighting lap and Ryde set the initial pace with a 1’41.880 although he was soon overhauled by both Charlie Nesbitt (MasterMac Honda by Hawk Racing) and Storm Stacey (Starline Racing Kawasaki).

Nesbitt posted a 1’39.570 and Bridewell soon went into second only to be bumped down a spot shortly afterwards by O’Halloran with Fraser Rogers (IN Competition Aprilia), Bradley Perie (Lee Hardy Racing Kawasaki) and Stacey now running in fourth to sixth.

Next time around and Ryde and Tom Booth-Amos (TAG Honda) moved up to second and third, but Stacey upstaged them both with a 1’38.962. However, Nesbitt was continuing to go quicker and went back to the top of the leaderboard with a 1’38.108. Times were changing rapidly though, and Bridewell had already dropped to 11^th.

However, with five minutes to go he jumped back up to sixth as Nesbitt continued to lead from O’Halloran, Ryan Vickers on the second OMG machine, Jack Kennedy (Mar-Train Racing Yamaha), Ryde and Stacey. Irwin, meanwhile, was back out on track.

Stacey then took over the top spot with a 1’37.497 only for Nesbitt to respond with a 1’36.640 and Stacey was soon down to fifth as O’Halloran, Vickers and Haslam all increased their pace. The yo-yo effect saw Bridewell down to 11^th once more only to go sixth quickest with two minutes of the session remaining.

O’Halloran took over at the top with a 1’36.097 which put him 0.363s ahead of Nesbitt with third placed Vickers a further 1.1s adrift but a late flurry of activity saw the latter drop all the way down to eighth as Haslam went second with Kennedy, Peter Hickman (FHO Racing BMW), Ryde and Bridewell taking fourth to seventh.

Behind Vickers, Christian Iddon (Oxford Products Racing Ducati) and one-time pole man Stacey completed the top ten but Irwin was unable to make an impression and ended the session in 17^th which will mean a sixth-row start for this afternoon’s race.

Brands Hatch BSB | Qualifying Results