Biaggi Takes Impressive Pole Position at Brno

Max Biaggi put in an impressive performance in the final Superpole session to secure pole position for tomorrow's races, seeing off the challenge of Marco Melandri and Carlos Checa. The three championship contenders dominated the three Superpole sessions with Melandri topping the first, Checa the second and Biaggi taking over at the front at the vital moment.

The battle for pole in SP3 was ultimately decided on the first flying laps, with Biaggi clocking a 1:58.580 to edge out Melandri, while Checa could only match his SP2 time and was forced to settle for third. Eugene Laverty will round out the front row on the second factory Yamaha.

Jakub Smrz was on the pace in all three sessions and took a well deserved fifth ahead of the Alstare Suzuki of Michel Fabrizio. Seventh place for Leon Camier will have been something of a triumph for the Briton who spent most of the two knockout sessions in the drop zone. The Aprilia Alitalia rider suffered a crash with just five minutes remaining of SP1 before remounting to sneak through in seventh before taking the last spot in SP3 after edging out Ayrton Badovini by 0.131s.

Tom Sykes showed impressive pace in the second session, with only Checa going quicker than him but the Kawasaki man was out of qualifying tyres when it came to SP3 and could only manage eighth. A repeat of his SP2 time would have put him on the front row.

Badovini heads the third row after the late improvements from Sykes and Fabrizio knocked him out of SP2, but the Italian is still the highest BMW on the grid. Sylvain Guintoli also lost out and will start tenth ahead of the impressive Mark Aitchison on the Team Pedercini Kawasaki with another privateer, Maxime Berger, 12^th on the Supersonic Ducati.

Leon Haslam was the big-name casualty in SP1 as the BMW Motorrad squad struggled again, with PATA Aprilia‘s Noriyuki Haga also dropping out. Lorenzo Lanzi will start 15^th as he continues to stand in for James Toseland while Matteo Baiocco will complete row four on the Barni Racing Ducati.

For the first time this year, neither of the Castrol Hondas made it into Superpole as Ruben Xaus came up short by 0.077s in Qualifying Practice. The Spaniard will start 17^th while Alex Lowes will take part in his first World Superbike race from 21^st as the Lincoln youngster stands in for Jonathan Rea.

Superpole Result: