Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea, Kawasaki’ Tom Sykes and Fixi Crescent Suzuki’s Leon Camier are far from happy with the final World Superbike Superpole session, which was red flagged by race direction with less than five minutes remaining, because of rain on the track.

Some of the riders have dubbed the session as ‘chaos’ as not much rain was falling when the flag did eventually come out, and it is safe to say that the Kawasaki’s missed out on the opportunity of pole, which after the re-start went to Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty.

At his home round Sykes initially set a remarkable record breaking 2’03.362 second lap in the eventually cancelled Superpole three, with team-mate Loris Baz right behind him and also under the previous track best, but that time was nullified when the session was red flagged.

The re-run Superpole three eventually delivered dry conditions, but in changeable early wet conditions Baz was fastest, before he was finally pushed to fourth place as the track dried at the end. But both riders will start the race from the second row.

The Huddersfield rider is unhappy with the decision but is glad that he made it on to the second row when it could have very easily been third.

“If those are the rules then that’s what happens but at least we got back to the second row and not the third. They had four minutes left of the session when they stopped it and turned it into a wet Superpole,” said Sykes.

“I am far from happy because nobody even looked at a wet tyre. On the positive side tomorrow is another day and row two is not too bad.”

Fixi Crescent Suzuki’s Leon Camier was ‘upset’ by the re-arranged Superpole, as he was on course for a front row start, his best of the season so far. As the rain cleared the track and the Superpole resumed it was dry enough for some fast times, but unfortunately Camier wasn’t able to improve on his time and will start tomorrow’s two races from seventh place.

“I’m really upset by what happened in Superpole, but it is what it is and we have to accept it. We have been second or third in every session so far this weekend and I was third in Superpole three, which I thought was good enough, but typically with how our luck seems to go, it sort of half dribbled at the wrong time and my time didn’t count," said Camier.

"The few spots of rain didn’t affect us as we had already done the lap-time, but even when I was on my lap it wasn’t enough to slow me down, but they decided to stop it and end the session anyway, which was really frustrating."

Out of most of the rider’s Rea was the one who took advantage of the red flag and clocked a time that was fast enough for him to round off the front row. But he acknowledges that he was lucky, and does not agree with the decision and has branded Superpole three as ‘strange.’

“I was not expecting the front row, because the session was chaos because when the red flag came out there was not too much rain and with four minutes left to the session it was a strange decision. But I got lucky because I was able to have another go in the twenty minute session,” said Rea, speaking to bikesportnews.com from the circuit.

“I don’t think that it was the correct decision, but I just got lucky. In Superpole we made a big step forward and I hope that is enough to battle with the front guys and to battle for the top.”