Alitalia Aprilia's Max Biaggi snatched World Superbike provisional pole position at the Nurburgring this afternoon ahead of this morning's fastest man Carlos Checa by just over a tenth of a second with Marco Melandri taking third with his final lap of the qualifying session.
Biaggi just nipped ahead of the Spaniard with a 1'55.524 while Yamaha's Melandri is another tenth further back on a 1'55.819. Michel Fabrizio got off the floor after an early crash to take fourth place. The Italian is only half a second off the pace.
Eugene Laverty led the session early on but slipped down to fifth as the pace increased while Liberty Ducati's Sylvain Guintoli stuck in a lap with ten minutes to go that was good enough for fifth when the chequered flag came out.
The returning Jonathan Rea lapped in a 1'56.325 which put him fourth with 20 minutes left but, as with Guintoli, he ended up in seventh just head of the Supersonic Ducati belonging to Maxine Berger. Tom Sykes was ninth and Leon Haslam rounded out the top ten eight tenths off the pace.
Leon Camier put the second works Aprilia in 14th place just behind Noriyuki Haga while James Toseland's BMW Italia S1000RR occupies 15th, one place ahead of Troy Corser on the factory version.
