James Toseland (Winston Ten Kate Honda) stormed to second place in Superpole at Brno, after setting a fourth fastest time in the earlier combined qualifying sessions. His front row start now leaves him in the perfect position for the start of Sunday's 20-lap Superbike races, after a consistently strong qualifying performance all weekend. James improved on his previous best lap time by over 1.1 seconds in Superpole, despite having to set his final flying lap on his number two bike, after his number one machine was damaged in an earlier crash.
Karl Muggeridge (Winston Ten Kate Honda) beat a path to eighth place after his personal best lap of the weekend, less than half a second slower than Toseland, in what was a close and competitive Superpole. In finishing eighth, and earning a start from row two, Muggeridge replicated his pre-Superpole qualification performance. Superpole was taken by Noriyuki Haga, the only rider faster than Toseland.
Ronald Ten Kate - Team Manager:“I am quite satisfied with the qualifying positions we took, especially seeing James almost topping all the others and being up at the top of the timesheets all weekend. We were hoping for another pole position but I think in free practice, when he had a little crash on his number one bike, we had to swap over to his second machine which had some different specs on it, and which we could not change in time for the Superpole lap. We also have to say that the Superpole time of Haga was pretty fast. We will see tomorrow how fast and consistent James has been on the race tyre, and we are pretty confident for him. It's OK for Karl on the second row of the grid but he was a bit surprised with the sheer speed of Superpole, as I think all of us were! But I am sure he can do well from the second row off the grid, even if the machine is still not perfect for him around here. We will work hard overnight and prepare ourselves to be in the best shape for tomorrow's race.”
James Toseland - (2nd position - 2'01.056)“We had a good qualifying so I am disappointed that I crashed in the free session this afternoon, in my last lap before Superpole qualifying. I was a little bit sceptical about using my number two bike because we had a few issues with it, but the guys did a great job in getting it ready and it felt almost exactly the same as my number one bike and it was good enough to let me go second - so big thanks to them. It would be nice to make a break tomorrow but tyre wear will play a big part and they will be long races. So I'm going to ride my own way.”
Karl Muggeridge - (8th position - 2'01.498)“In the final free practice I wasn't pushing too hard so I think that might have affected my Superpole lap. I think I worked the throttle too hard in Superpole and the bike was a bit unsteady because of that. I think I just tried too hard, and that slowed me down. Second row is not too bad because my times with a race set-up are consistent and I am confident for tomorrow. This is not the most difficult track to pass people on, because it's wide and has a lot of chicanes.”
Superpole: 1. Haga - Yamaha - 2'00.457
2. Toseland - Winston Ten Kate Honda - 2'01.056
3. Lanzi - Ducati - 2'01.073
4. Bayliss - Ducati - 2'01.207
5. Corser - Suzuki - 2'01.351
8. Muggeridge - Winston Ten Kate Honda - 2'01.498
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