Glenn Irwin claimed pole position for this afternoon’s Bennetts British Superbike race at Snetterton, the Honda Racing rider’s opening lap of 1’46.354s enough to see him better McAMS Yamaha team-mates Jason O’Halloran and Tarran Mackenzie.
A dramatic session saw Josh Brookes dive up the inside of VisionTrack Ducati team-mate Christian Iddon when on a personal best lap in the final seconds, but with no room for the manoeuvre, he lost the front and both riders went down.
There was also an on-track contretemps between Peter Hickman and Bradley Ray, the former furious with the latter after he was held up when on his own flying lap, Ray making his way back to the pits after a crash.
After Iddon, Ryan Vickers, Dan Linfoot, Takumi Takahashi, Storm Stacey and Joe Francis progressed from Q1, Iddon setting an impressive lap of 1’47.060, it was Glenn Irwin who made the early running in Q2 with a first flying lap of 1’46.354.
Brother Andrew was the only other rider to dip below 1’47 on that opening lap and it was Gino Rea, Hickman, Ryan Vickers and O’Halloran who completed the early top-six.
Next time around, the changes started to happen with O’Halloran and Mackenzie jumping up to second and third, O’Halloran just 0.033s adrift of Irwin. Lee Jackson was another mover and went from 12th to fifth on his third lap.
The FS-3 Racing Kawasaki man gained another place on his fourth lap, pushing Andrew Irwin back to fifth and the Ulsterman was soon down to sixth with fellow BMW rider Hickman jumping up to sixth. Another BMW man, Ray, was out of luck though as he slid off before remounting, the two later having the aforementioned clash.
With one minute to go, Mackenzie set a new personal best and although it kept him in third, it cut the gap to Irwin to just 0.138s to ensure it was a tightly bunched first three.
Irwin’s opening lap remained untouchable though and the front row remained the same, Brookes’ crash denying him a possible opportunity to get in amongst them.
That meant it was Jackson, Hickman and Andrew Irwin who took fourth to sixth with Rea, Brookes, Vickers and Tommy Bridewell completing the top-10.
