Hodgson sets fastest ever lap at Monza.

HM Plant Ducati/GSE Racing star Neil Hodgson has scorched to provisional pole position for Sunday's Superbike races at the Monza Autodrome. The 28-year-old from Burnley was in devastating form as he smashed the outright lap record at the Northern Italian circuit, going 0.3s faster than his nearest challenger, 2000 World Champion Colin Edwards. Hodgson's team-mate James Toseland also put in an outstanding qualifying performance to become the sixth quickest rider of the session.

Torrential rain had blighted the first timed session and the track was still drying when Hodgson set his best time of 1:48.282 - 0.3s faster than anyone has ever covered the 5.79km circuit.

"I'm really pleased to be in such as strong position," said Hodgson, "just in case the weather doesn't hold out. The most encouraging thing about my time is that it was clocked on a race tyre. I didn't get within a second of that on a qualifier, because I got caught up in traffic. This circuit rewards riders who have total confidence in their machinery and can keep it smooth through the chicanes and high-speed corners. That suits me because I really feel in tune with the HM Plant Ducati and always try to keep things flowing. My Dunlop tyres are also performing fantastically well and we've got some really good settings worked out, and that means that the bike is an absolute missile around Monza."

James Toseland once more outperformed other more experienced factory riders, including Chris Walker and Noriyuki Haga, to state his case for a second row start. The Sheffield-based rider's impressive time of 1:49.335 was just one second off the searing pace set by his provisional pole-sitting team-mate.

"Sixth is as good as I could have hoped for at this stage. I've learned a lot from studying Neil's set-up and once I had the bike as I wanted it, I knew that I could improve in this afternoon session. My confidence is growing with every lap on the HM Plant Ducati and that's what you need around this circuit - confidence."