Factory Yamaha Italia's Tom Sykes had to settle for 12th on the grid after the brand-new Superpole system as an "inconsistent" tyre meant he lost time changing it.

Sykes was well inside the top eight during Superpole two but came into the pits to change a duff tyre which lost him vital track time and the youngster was bumped down to the third row.

“I don’t feel we’ve got where we need to be yet, perhaps where we should be but we’re getting there. Overall it’s looking pretty good, we seem to be able to do the times, unfortunately in Superpole we got caught out with a tyre which wasn’t as consistent as it should have been forcing a switch and costing time," said Sykes.

"So we’ve had a bit of bad luck, on the plus side I’m confident of getting on the pace and fighting for the podium in the race tomorrow.”