Irishman Jack Kennedy secured yet another Dickies British Supersport pole position this afternoon as he once again beat championship rival Ben Currie.
The Integro Yamaha rider, who leads the German-born Australian by 14 points in the standings heading into this afternoon’s sprint race, has not been beaten in 2018’s qualifying battles.
In the opening minutes of today’s session, however, Gearlink Kawasaki’s Currie shot out of the gates and topped the timesheets on his first flying lap, powering ahead of James Rispoli and James Westmoreland.
But moments after Kennedy clocked the first 1’51 to lead the session, red flags brought qualifying to a halt.
When action got back underway, the top four remained unchanged as Kennedy went even faster with a low 1’51 to go over 0.6s quicker than title rival Currie.
Despite Currie’s best attempts to beat the Irishman, he couldn’t catch Kennedy and had to settle for second once again, missing out by just over 0.3s.
Everquip Racing’s Rispoli had grabbed a provisional front row starting spot, but Westy quickly deposed him and took back third, before former British 125 champ Josh Owens put the RS Racing Kalex GP2 machine in fourth and EHA Racing's Ross Twyman slotted into fifth, further bumping the American down the order.
Twyman's team-mate David Allingham, Brad Jones and Draper Racing man Tommy Philp complete the third row of the grid.