Byrne got round the 2.3-mile circuit in 1m 27.144s - but Sykes was only 0.111 seconds behind. Sykes was fifth quickest in each of yesterday's sessions, but increasingly has that look of a guy who's on the verge of winning his first BSB race.
"We made some changes overnight to get the bike feeling exactly as I want it," he said. "It's got a really good level of stability, so I can put it where I want it."
Leon Haslam, eager to score his first win of the year, was third fastest on the HM Plant Honda, 0.418s down, and led Airwaves' Leon Camier. Cal Crutchlow was fifth quickest on the second HM Plant Honda, from Michael Rutter on the NW200 Ducati, 0.790s behind Byrne.
Sunday am - Colin Wright: Losing Again is not Acceptable
Life looks so easy for Colin Wright, manager of the championship-leading Airwaves Ducati team, as he lounges on a scooter in the sun outside the pitbox at
Brands Hatch this morning. Shane Byrne's on pole, Leon Camier's on the second row, and the pair are 1-2 in the points table after two rounds.
But GSE Racing, the team behind the Airwaves Ducati name, hasn't won three British Superbike titles and helped two British riders, Neil Hodgson and
James Toseland, to World Superbike titles just by hanging around.
It's all about thinking the issues through with detailed, meticulous planning and follow-up action.
"I'd worked with Dunlop for 15 years, so emotionally it was a difficult time when we had to part with them," Wright says of BSB's change to Pirelli control tyres this season. "We were provided with our own tyre engineer who would meet our engineers on a regular basis. We had development tyres that were expected to outperform anything that Michelin made.
"But now there's just one Pirelli engineer who looks after everyone. I said to him that we would use him as little as possible because he's going to be so busy."
