Biaggi Leaves Rivals Trailing in Monza Superpole

Max Biaggi was in dominant form at Monza as he stormed to his first pole position of the 2011 World Superbike Championship.

The Italian already had it sewn up before starting his final flying lap, but still managed to knock half a second off his original pole time.

The reigning WSBK champion set a time of 1:41.745, giving him an advantage of 0.648s over Yamaha's Eugene Laverty.

The Irishman was near the top of the timesheets in all three sessions and was Biaggi's nearest challenger in Superpole 3.

Jonathan Rea's strong form from Assen continued with the Castrol Honda rider going third quickest. His teammate Ruben Xaus had a nightmare time though, not even making it into Superpole and qualifying 17^th.

Surprisingly, Troy Corser was the fastest of the BMWs, who didn't enjoy the same advantage they had on Friday. The Australian qualified fourth with teammate Leon Haslam sixth, just behind Marco Melandri.

Michel Fabrizio got the Alstare Suzuki onto the second row in seventh while Noriyuki Haga sneaked into SP3 after beating Ayrton Badovini by 0.015s at the end of the second session.

The BMW Motorrad Italia rider will head up row three, while Leon Camier couldn't match the dominant pace of his teammate and will start tenth.

You have to go all the way back to 11^th place to find championship leader Carlos Checa. The Althea Racing Ducati seemed to struggle on the high speed straights of the 5.777km circuit and Checa struggled even to make it through the first session.

In the end, he was less than a tenth quicker than Joan Lascorz, the fastest Kawasaki, and the World Superbike rookie will start 13^th, with teammate Tom Sykes alongside in 14^th.

Jakub Smrz was down in 15^th while Maxime Berger fulfilled his promise to get into the Superpole session. The Frenchman got no further than that though and will start 16^th.