Aprilia's Max Biaggi has taken top spot in this morning's World Superbike second qualifying session at Portimao but he is being chased hard by the works Kawasaki of Tom Sykes who is a little over a tenth of a second behind the championship leader.
Biaggi bagged top spot with only a few minutes left to go with a 1'42.800 but Sykes hit straight back on a 1'42.940. The Roman Emperor has found more than a second between the two sessions while Marco Melandri, on the factory BMW, slipped back to third after leading for a majority of the 45 minutes. Team-mate Leon Haslam found a couple of tenths overnight to take fourth place and round out a provisional front row.
Eugene Laverty, on the second Aprilia, is half a second in arrears in fifth place but, like Haslam, he has improved by a couple of tenths from the first session. Frenchman Loris Baz also leapt up the timesheet, going from a 1'44.542 to a 1'43.436 to take sixth place while Jonathan Rea bagged seventh place.
Fixi Suzuki's Leon Camier improved in time to eighth place after sitting in third earlier in the session while the Althea Ducatis of Davide Guigliano and Carlos Checa, still some way down on top speed, round out the top ten.
Nurburgring race two winner Chaz Davies is 13th behind Michel Fabrizio and Sylvain Guintoli while Brett McCormick is the last man into Superpole. John Hopkins did improve in 19th place but won't be in the final analysis this afternoon.
