Althea Ducati's Carlos Checa has taken World Superbike provisional pole at Misano this afternoon in a session that was red-flagged with three minutes to when Troy Corser crashed in turn eight and was taken to the medical centre in an ambulance after a big highside.
As with the free practice session earlier, Checa held off Alitalia Aprilia's Max Biaggi for top spot but managed to increase his advantage to more than a tenth of a second with a 1'36.024. Corser was the only other riders to set a fastest lap which he did at half-distance.
Factory Yamaha's Marco Melandri dragged himself up to third after spending much of the session glued to team-mate Eugene Laverty in seventh but his lap of 1'36.482 was enough to depose the Alstare Suzuki of Michel Fabrizio who rounds out the front row.
Corser was eventually shuffled down to fifth place with Laverty in sixth but still less than a quarter of a second off the pace while Jakub Smrz put his Liberty Ducati in seventh, just ahead of Noriyuki Haga who found some pace over lunch to bag eighth.
PBM Kawasaki's Tom Sykes is just behind ninth-placed Sylvain Guintol and the Huddersfield rider heads a quartet of Brits with Leon Haslam 11th, Jonathan Rea 12th and Leon Camier 13th who are all within a tenth of each other.
