Michel Fabrizio says his hopes of challenging for pole position at Magny-Cours were blighted by a necessity to swap to his second bike shortly before qualifying, the Italian nonetheless stating that he was otherwise happy to qualify third.

Fabrizio, who scored his first pole position just a week ago at Imola, entered Superpole as a strong contender for a repeat performance having dominated provisional qualifying.

However, a problem with his lead Ducati Xerox bike minutes before Superpole forced him to switch to a 'less comfortable' spare machine.

Nonetheless, despite initially looking as though he would miss the front row, Fabrizio would dig deep to grab third position at the death, just five thousandths off Jonathan Rea in second position

“I'm very happy to be able to start from the front row again. A few minutes before Superpole we unfortunately found a problem with my first bike, the bike I'd been riding, and very comfortable with, up until then.

So I had to go out with the second bike for the Superpole. It wasn't perfect and the qualifiers didn't give me the feeling that I expected but I did enough to assure myself of a place on the front row. Tomorrow won't be at all easy for Nori and myself as Spies and Rea both have a great race pace.”