Jason O’Halloran claimed pole position for this afternoon’s British Superbike Championship race at Thruxton, with the McAMS Yamaha rider getting the better of the LAMI OMG Racing pairing of Ryan Vickers and Kyle Ryde in the 12-minute qualifying session.

That made it a Yamaha 1-2-3, the R1 expected to be prominent around the high-speed venue but the big story of the session was championship leader Tommy Bridewell being down in 15^th on the BeerMonster Ducati, some 1.2s off the pace.

With the morning rain having cleared up, both Q1 and Q2 were completely dry, Vickers, Max Cook, Leon Haslam, Bradley Perie, Dean Harrison and Storm Stacey all advancing from the former but Josh Brookes failing to progress, the Australian only managing a lowly 21^st after suffering with a lack of grip.

That was the second big story in the session, but it was of little concern to the 18 riders that lined up for Q2 and it was Vickers who set the pace on the first flying lap with a 1’14.918s, the first sub-1’15 of the weekend. Fellow Yamaha riders O’Halloran and Ryde followed with Lee Jackson (Cheshire Mouldings Kawasaki) in fourth ahead of Charlie Nesbitt (MasterMac Honda by Hawk Racing) and the impressive Cook.

Less than half a second covered the top six riders in the early stages but there were no changes on the second flying lap as championship leader Bridewell and team-mate Glenn Irwin found themselves down in 11^th and 13^th respectively.

Changes came next time around as O’Halloran moved to the top of the leaderboard, his lap of 1’14.634s putting him 0.284s clear of Vickers, third to sixth remaining the same as Irwin hauled himself up to eighth behind Stacey.

There were to be no further changes in the top six though and it was Stacey (Starline Racing Kawasaki), Irwin, Jack Kennedy (Mar-Train Racing Yamaha) and Haslam that completed the top ten with Bridewell slipping back to 15^th at the chequered flag. Fellow Ducati rider Christian Iddon was another rider to find the going tough with the Oxford Products Racing rider finishing one place further back in 16^th.