HM Plant Honda's Leon Haslam has taken full advantage of the testing time he put in at Portimao this week by putting himself second on the provisional front row in today's first World Superbike qualifying session.

And Haslam leads a British charge to the front with team-mate Cal Crutchlow, Vent Axia Honda's Chris Walker and Ten Kate Honda's Jonathan Rea filling up the second row.

On a drying track, Santander Yamaha's Troy Corser timed his run to perfection, switching to an intermediate tyre at exactly the right time and setting provisional pole by almost one and a half seconds.

Crutchlow got his tyre choices wrong but still managed to get fifth after some frantic tyre swapping in the dying minutes. Rea sat at the top of the timesheets early on but a gearbox problem on his Honda Fireblade meant he had to sit out the part of the session.
Newly-crowned champion Troy Bayliss could only muster a tenth place after leading this morning's free practice times, while Corser's team-mate Nori Haga, with whom the Aussie is fighting for second place, was in 11th.
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