Reigning champion, Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne, will go into the first Datatag Extreme Qualifying session of the new season leading the pack after beating Ryuichi Kiyonari in this morning’s final practice session.
Byrne put in a lap of 1:29.847 in the final seconds of the session to move ahead of Kiyonari, but the pair were very close and Byrne’s time was just 0.090s quicker than the Buildbase BMW rider.
Last season’s title contenders have been hard to split all weekend, with Kiyonari getting the better of Byrne in yesterday’s second free practice session by only 0.010s.
Behind the top two Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes showed some improvement from the Saturday sessions to be third quickest, ahead of James Ellison on the JG Speedfit Kawasaki.
Honda Racing’s Dan Linfoot put in a lap-time of 1:30.381 late-on in the session to knock Billy McConnell down to sixth place, with Stuart Easton behind them in seventh.
Under the new rules for the 2015 MCE British Superbike Championship, only the top 30 riders from the practice sessions go into qualifying, with those finishing in 31st place and below starting the race from their practice position.
Jakub Smrz will start from 31st position after the Lloyds British Ducati team were unable to solve their issues following a crash on Saturday.
Taylor Mackenzie is next in 32nd place after failing to make it out onto the track due to technical issues, with David Johnson and Aaron Zanotti lining-up in 33rd and 34th places respectively.
Honda’s Jenny Tinmouth and SBK City Racing Kawasaki’s Rhalf Lo Turco close-out the grid formation.
This afternoon’s Datatag Extreme Qualifying session for round one of the 2015 BSB session gets underway at 16:05.
Donington Park Free Practice Times
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