Jason O’Halloran claimed pole position for this afternoon’s opening British Superbike Championship race at Donington Park for his third pole of the season.

Stopping the clock with a lap time of 1m 27.196s, it placed the McAMS Yamaha rider 0.142s clear of Tommy Bridewell (BeerMonster Ducati) with Leon Haslam (ROKiT BMW Motorrad Team) taking third.

As a few spots of rain fell, Italian Niccolo Canepa (McAMS Yamaha) set the fastest time in Q1 at 1’28.469s, but it was Haslam who set the pace initially in Q2 with a considerably quicker lap of 1’27.364s.

That put him almost a second clear of Christian Iddon (Oxford Products Racing Ducati) but LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha team-mates Kyle Ryde and Ryan Vickers quickly moved into second and third, a tenth and two tenths of a second adrift respectively.

Storm Stacey was out of luck though as he stopped with a technical issue shortly after setting the tenth quickest time on the Starline Racing Kawasaki.

Bridewell and BeerMonster team-mate and championship leader Glenn Irwin slotted into fourth and fifth on their opening lap before O’Halloran split them and Canepa was continuing to improve as he went seventh quickest after breaking into the 1’27’s for the first time.

With three minutes to go, Bridewell jumped up to the top of the leaderboard with a lap of 1’27.338s putting him 0.026s clear of Haslam but shortly afterwards, O’Halloran set the quickest sector times in sectors one and two and again in sector four and sure enough he went pole with a time of 1.27.196s.

That gave him advantage of 0.142s and he held on to the top spot from Bridewell and Haslam with Ryde, Vickers and Irwin’s earlier lap times keeping them in the top six and on the second row.

BSB debutant Canepa, Peter Hickman (FHO Racing BMW), Charlie Nesbitt (MasterMac Honda by Hawk Racing) and Lee Jackson (Cheshire Mouldings Kawasaki) completed the top ten.

Josh Brookes, a podium finisher at Donington earlier in the year, scraped through to Q2 after taking the final spot in Q1 but could only manage 17^th on the FHO Racing BMW which will see him line up on the sixth row later this afternoon.