Max Neukirchner gave home fans exactly what they wanted to see by claiming a superb pole position for round seven of the World Superbike Championship at the Nurburgring.
Cheered on by a good crowd for what is effectively ‘qualifying day', Neukirchner made the most his place in the running order that ensured he was the penultimate rider to set a time by producing a 1min 55.471secs lap, one that would place him well ahead of his rivals.
His second pole position of the season, Neukirchner was in imperious form in the middle sector especially, pulling out the four tenths gap to second place
Troy Bayliss to put him in a brilliant position for a famous victory tomorrow.
With regards to the championship fight, the top three in the standings will start on the front row, with Bayliss and
Carlos Checa second and third on the grid.
Bayliss had gone into qualifying as the big favourite after his stunning final lap in Qualifying 2, but could not do enough to respond to Neukirchner's attempt just moments before and was forced to settle for what is his sixth straight front row start.
Checa was a star of the session, the Spaniard defying his poor place in the running order to leap from 12th to third place with a lap that briefly looked as though would have been good enough for a surprise pole position.
Noriyuki Haga made it four different manufacturers on the front row. The Japanese rider even came very close to featuring even further forward only to make an error in the second and third sectors, while
Michel Fabrizio showed good qualifying form again to round out the top five.
Unsurprisingly those who set their times in the latter stages benefited most from improving track conditions, although there were a few exceptions, namely Max Biaggi and Sebastien Gimbert, who dropped from third and sixth respectively to eighth and 15th.
For Biaggi, the Italian struggled with traction on his Sterilgarda Ducati to slip behind
Troy Corser, who will start sixth, and
Lorenzo Lanzi, who was another to leap up the order for seventh on the grid.
