World Superbike almost-champion Carlos Checa nabbed provsional pole position at Magny-Cours this afternoon but was chased hard by the Yamaha of Eugene Laverty whose final lap brought him to just 0.012s of the Althea Duati man.
In a frantic final ten minutes, PBM Kawasaki's Tom Sykes took the lead from Checa but had to surrender it back to the Spaniard before it was nicked by the Liberty Ducati of Sylvain Guintoli just as the Spaniard put in the fastest lap of the weekend so far, a 1'38.652 - close to Noriyuki Haga's lap record of 1'38.619.
Laverty, meanwhile, was up on the first splits but just lost out on the run to the line, breaking the beam with a 1'38.664 which nudged Frenchman Guintoli back to third and Sykes, who was only two-tenths slower than Checa's time, to the outside of the front row.
Guintoli's team-maye Jakub Smrz put in a late lap to claim fifth place from the flying Castrol Honda of Jonathan Rea in sixth. The Irishman had climbed to third fastest early on after an ear-plug drama on the out-lap caused his immediate return to pitlane but then slipped back down the order.
BMW's Leon Haslam couldn't replicate his position from this morning but was still able to put the S1000RR in seventh place, just ahead of Pata Aprilia'sHaga who is continuing his run of form from the last two rounds. The Samurai of Slide rounds out row two.
Haslam's team-mate Troy Corser is ninth with Joan Lascorz and Maxine Berger's Supersonic Ducati. There were a few raised eyebrows when he went into second place early on and stayed there for rather longer than anyone anticipated.
Mark Aitchison put the Pedercini Kawasaki in 12th place, with Ayrton Badovini in 13th, a still-struggling Marco Melandri in 14th, Michel Fabrizio 15th and the sole Alitalia Aprilia of Leon Camier down in 16th place after he made a foray into the top ten at half-time.
