Glenn Irwin claimed his first pole position of the British Superbike Championship season as he pipped Ryan Vickers to the top spot at Knockhill.

The BeerMonster Ducati rider edged out the resurgent the LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha rider by 0.067secs, with Jason O’Halloran on the McAMS Yamaha completing the front row.

Irwin was quickest out of the blocks with a 47.457s lap on his first flying lap which put him ahead of the OMG Racing pairing of Kyle Ryde and Vickers, Leon Haslam (ROKiT BMW Motorrad), Danny Buchan (Synetiq BMW) and Josh Brookes (FHO Racing BMW) but second time around, Vickers went to the top of the leaderboard with a time of 47.225s.

Ryde moved up to second as Lee Jackson (Cheshire Mouldings Kawasaki) jumped up to fourth with O’Halloran and Charlie Nesbitt (MasterMac Honda by Hawk Racing) rounding out the top six but O’Halloran was next to make a move as he went second quickest.

However, this soon became third as Irwin responded with a lap of 47.158s which put him at the top of the timesheets once more albeit by only 0.067s and at the halfway point of the session the order was Irwin, Vickers, O’Halloran, Ryde, Haslam and Jackson. 

Storm Stacey (Starline Racing Kawasaki) was again impressing in seventh, but championship leader Tommy Bridewell was down in ninth on the second BeerMonster Ducati with Brookes having slipped back to tenth. With three minutes to go though, the Australian moved up to sixth.

He was soon pushed down a spot by Nesbitt who slotted into fifth but there were to be no further changes and Irwin took the pole from Vickers and O’Halloran with row two comprising Ryde, the impressive Nesbitt and Haslam.

Brookes, Stacey, Jackson and Bridewell completed the top ten but Buchan, double victor from 2021, could only manage 15^th.

BSB Knockhill | Qualifying Results