Troy Bayliss will start on pole position for the ninth round of the World Superbike Championship at Brno after a fine effort in Superpole.
His 22nd career pole position – and his fourth of the season – Bayliss shrugged of a slightly tardy middle sector to edge
Troy Corser by just over a tenth of a second and place himself in a good position to extend his championship lead this weekend.
Going third from last on the running order, Bayliss will start ahead of countryman Corser after several riders floundered under the pressure of extracting a good single lap around a Brno circuit that has been unpredictable at the best of times this weekend.
This is represented by the top five which sees
Michel Fabrizio up to third place from seventh in provisional qualifying and Max Biaggi, who couldn't capitalise on being the last rider to set a lap time on the way to fourth.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the session came from
Ryuichi Kiyonari, who defied his first place in the running order to claim a career best fifth on the grid. A remarkable showing regardless of the struggles both he and the Ten Kate Honda have been suffering recently, Kiyonari held the top spot for half the session before eventually being usurped by Fabrizio.
The best of the Hondas by a fair margin, Kiyonari will start ahead of the third Xerox Ducati of Niccoló Canepa, the Italian proving a quick learner as he adapted to the single-lap format of Superpole to qualify an impressive sixth on his debut.
Seventh place
Fonsi Nieto will start in his best grid slot since Monza, although will be frustrated to have slipped from a provisional fifth. Still, he remains the leading Alstare Suzuki rider after Max Neukirchner experienced a rare Superpole flop, the German dropping from fourth to ninth.
The pair were split by Jakub Smrz, who couldn't translate his impressive pace over a long qualifying session into single lap speed.
Yukio Kagayama rounds out the top ten runners.
