Tommy Bridewell claimed his second pole position of the British Superbike Championship season at Brands Hatch on Saturday afternoon with the BeerMonster Ducati rider coming out on top in qualifying ahead of Ryan Vickers (LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha) and Josh Brookes (FHO Racing BMW).

Due to the high risk of rain, the planned Superpole qualifying was shelved and instead, it was the traditional Superpole wet procedure with a 12-minute session for the 15 riders, Charlie Nesbitt, Max Cook and Jack Kennedy the three riders to progress from Q1.

With steady rain falling, Leon Haslam (ROKiT BMW Motorrad) was the first out of the pits, but he aborted his first, flying lap to return to the pits and so it was Christian Iddon (Oxford Products Ducati) who was first to top the leaderboard with a 1’44.926 but he was soon shuffled back to fourth by Vickers, Charlie Nesbitt (MasterMac Honda by Hawk Racing) and Kyle Ryde on the second OMG machine.

Bridewell was next to go quickest in the tricky conditions, despite a big slide coming onto the start and finish straight, with an advantage of 1.6s over Vickers although that was halved by Iddon next time around.

Vickers then went quickest with a lap of 1’40.493s only for Bridewell to reassert his authority on his next lap, a time of 1’39.953s giving him a half second advantage and with four minutes to go the order was Bridewell, Vickers, Ryde, Iddon, Peter Hickman and FHO Racing team-mate Brookes.

The top spot continued to change hands, Vickers back in front with three minutes remaining and Danny Kent (Lovell Kent Racing Honda) was another rider on the move, jumping up to third with two minutes to go. Haslam was back out on track though and his first lap saw him relegate Kent to fourth. That soon became fifth with Kennedy also gaining places on the Mar-Train Racing Yamaha.

Bridewell was the man continuing to gain time though and his penultimate lap of 1’37.751s sent him 1.3s clear of Vickers and although the Yamaha man brought the gap down to under half a second, Bridewell’s final lap of 1’37.523s meant he ended qualifying 0.643s quicker than his nearest rival.

Brookes took third with Kennedy’s late charge rewarded with a strong fourth place ahead of Haslam and Kent. Glenn Irwin (BeerMonster Ducati), Ryde, Jason O’Halloran (McAMS Yamaha) and Hickman completed the top ten.