Birthday boy Leon Camier saw his hopes of a home pole position go up in smoke when Liberty Ducati's Jakub Smrz edged ahead of the former British Superbike Champion on his final lap at a wet Silverstone.
Camier had been battling with Leon Haslam for top spot, demoting the Derbyshire rider with only one minute go on a 2'20.846 and looked set to take his first Tissot watch but Smrz had other ideas, going just five one-hundredths of a second quicker.
Haslam was then bumped down to the outside of the front row when Sylvain Guintoli put his Pata Ducati into third place with a lap six-tents slower than the similar Effenbert-backed bike. Davide Guigliano had led with five minutes to go, but he crashed unhurt and slipped back into fifth.
Marco Melandri just couldn't find the pace of his BMW team-mate and starts from the middle of row two with Carlos Checa and Tom Sykes for company. Checa slipped off in the second session and Sykes had a monster highside which put an end to his challenge for an eighth pole. Both were unhurt.
Loris Baz is ninth after not making it through to the second Superpole session while Jonathan Rea and Max Biaggi are in tenth and 11th. Eugene Laverty will start from 14th place and was clearly very unhappy with his performance as he marched back to his garage from parc ferme after the first session. Once again, Chaz Davies had bike trouble and didn't put in a meaningful lap, so starts 16th.
