Superpole two

Tom Sykes 1'35.375

Ayrton Badovini 1'36.038

Kawasaki's Tom Sykes has blasted to his fifth World Superbike pole position of the 2012 season and, until the final laps, was more than a second in front of the field until Honda's Jonathan Rea found some more pace and pegged the Huddersfield man back to a six-tenths advantage.

Sykes lapped at 1'35.375 to get close to Troy Corser's outright record set in 2010 but Rea was chasing hard for the whole of the 20-minute session. Ayrton Badovini bagged third place with his 1'36.083 which had been good enough for second before Rea got his head down while Davide Guigliano's final circuit was enough for a front-row start - the second in a row for the European Superstock 1000 Champion.

Liberty Ducati's Jakub Smrz just didn't have his one-lap pace today but sits atop row two and he has Leon Haslam next to him. Eugene Laverty showed potential through the first half of the lap but then, as he neared the line, his Aprilia just couldn't find grip to carry him further up the order. Sylvain Guintoli takes eighth after walking away from a front-end crash with ten minutes left.

Superpole one

Tom Sykes 1'36.286

Davide Guigliano 1'36.598

Althea Ducati's Carlos Checa was sensationally slowest in the first of the two declared-wet-but-dry Superpole sessions. He remained in his garage until halfway through the session, came out on a qualifier, put in a couple of laps and then rolled into pitlane with only two minutes left. He was too late to put in a faster time and will start tomorrow from the end of row four.

Max Biaggi also fell foul of the drop zone but was bumped into it by none other than team-mate Eugene Laverty who scrambled from the bottom of the pile to take the final space in the second session. Leon Camier also failed to make it through as did Marco Melandri, another title favourite to fall at the first hurdle.

At the sharp end, Rea and Sykes swapped fastest times with abandon as the track fully dried out. The Kawasaki man came out on top by a little under three-tenths of a second with Checa's team-mate Guigliano rubbing salt into the Spaniard's wound by going third quickest.

ELIMINATED

Matteo Baicco

Max Biaggi

Loris Baz

Michel Fabrizio

Marco Melandri

Leon Camier

Lorenzo Zanetti

Carlos Checa

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