Jonathan Rea has clinched his first pole position since Portimao in 2022 ahead of Round 6 for the 2023 WorldSBK Championship at Donington Park.

In a session hampered by various yellow flags as the riders chased their fastest laps, Rea found a gap between the issues around him to pump in a 1m 26.041secs effort.

Signalling a lap record effort for the Kawasaki Racing Team rider, the home favourite was just under a tenth faster than runaway championship leader Álvaro Bautista, who managed to haul his factory Aruba.it Ducati into second place before taking a tumble at Coppice moments later.

He wasn't the only Ducati rider to fall foul in the dry, but overcast conditions with both Michael Ruben Rinaldi and Axel Bassani falling at Goddards, which in turn spoiled several fast laps

This included one for Tom Sykes, who had to roll off and lose the four tenths in the final sector as he came up on Rinaldi, the ROKiT BMW rider - standing in for Michael van der Mark - denied the chance of potentially claiming a shock pole position.

Instead, the Danilo Petrucci completes the front row in his first Donington Park outing since 2009, while Toprak Razgatlioglu was another to be caught up in yellow flags - for him Bautista's crash - as he had to settle for fourth.

He will be joined on the second row by Alex Lowes in fifth and Dominique Aegerter in sixth, the Swiss rider popping up onto the second row late on.

That demoted Andrea Locatelli to seventh, while a frustrated Sykes had to make do with eighth having ceded a lap that would have likely placed him on the front row. Rinaldi and Garrett Gerloff complete the top ten.

Elsewhere, Scott Redding will get underway from 12th on the grid, while Bradley Ray was another unfortunate victim of the yellow flags as he saw a top ten lap taken away, leaving him 16th.