HM Plant Honda's Johnny Rea scorched his way round a sunny Brands Hatch to set the fastest ever two wheeled lap of the Kent circuit and take pole position for the first round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship.
His time was 1min 25.235secs which was under the pole position time set during World Superbikes by Troy Bayliss last year. Also joining him on the front row of the grid is another young gun, Leon Camier on the Bike Animal Honda. Camier was banging in consistent laps all weekend and it has paid off with a visit to the front row of the grid in third place on his first time racing the Superbike.
Between the two Hondas in second and fourth place were the Airwaves Ducatis of Gregorio Lavilla and Leon Haslam respectively.
Both the blue Rizla machines are lining up next to one another on the second row of the grid with Chris Walker in fifth place and Cal Cructhlow in sixth. Stobart Honda's Shane Byrne qualified in seventh place, he found that his qualifying tyres didn't hook up as he had expected, but he is reasonably happy with second row of the grid.
The defending Champion Ryuichi Kiyonari qualified in eighth place which is further down the grid than expected for him. He has been working hard on getting himself dialed into the bike, but of course he can't be counted out when it comes to race day.
The final two places in the top ten went to Tom Sykes on the Stobart machine and Dean Thomas on the Samsung Suzuki.
During the session Haslam had a trundle into the gravel at Druids hairpin. Tommy Hill who had a massive high side during final free practice suffered further bad luck during qualifying when he was flagged with a technical problem. Things went from bad to worse when he was given a forty second penalty for taking a short cut back to the pit lane.
Michael Rutter on the Isilon MSS Discovery Kawasaki also suffered a technical problem during qualifying leaving him down in fourteenth place.
BSB qualifying results – Brands Hatch:1. Johnny Rea
2. Gregorio Lavilla
3. Leon Camier
4. Leon Haslam
5. Chris Walker
6. Cal Crutchlow
7. Shane Bryne
8. Ryuichi Kiyonari
9. Tom Sykes
10. Dean Thomas
