After mixed conditions throughout the day it came as no real surprise when this afternoon's Superpole was declared "wet". Rain ceased almost immediately however which meant that all of the sixteen participants adopted the same strategy, waiting until the final fifteen minutes of the fifty minute session before exiting on what had already become a drier track.
The strategy worked perfectly for Troy Bayliss, whose final three laps were also his fastest, thus awarding him his fifth pole position of the season. It is the third year running that Troy has taken pole at Brands, and tomorrow will also see the fiftieth front row start of his World Superbike career. Joining him on tomorrow's front row are Haga, Kiyonari and Smrz.
Troy's Ducati Xerox team-mate Michel Fabrizio had a more difficult day, qualifying for Superpole in sixteenth place. He did however make up several places during the Superpole and will start tomorrow's races from the third row of the grid, in twelfth place.
Troy Bayliss 1m25.6s"I'm very happy to take pole today in such mixed conditions. The wet Superpole meant we had twelve laps available during the fifty minute session. We decided to wait until the end of the session when the track would have had chance to dry out a bit, and then I went out and did one lap to take a look at the track before going out on a qualifier, with which I did three laps, the last of which was my fastest and just fast enough to take pole. We're looking good on the race tyre for tomorrow so I'm pretty confident. I'd like tomorrow to be dry of course, it would make for great racing and be good for all the fans and hopefully we can get a good result!"
Michel Fabrizio 1m26.8s"Today I had a few problems. I was never totally confident with the front of the bike and at two corners in particular I wasn't able to control it. We worked with two different tyres and changed a few different things during the session but it didn't make a lot of difference and I just never felt completely comfortable really. We hope to do much better tomorrow, in fact we are confident we will do so, though I also hope it will be dry for the races."
TIMES (Superpole): 1. Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) 1m25.6s2. Haga (Yamaha) 1m25.6
3. Kiyonari (Honda) 1m25.8s
4. Smrz (Ducati) 1m25.95.
5. Corser (Yamaha) 1m26.0s;
6. Sykes (Suzuki) 1m26.1s
12. Fabrizio (Ducati Xerox) 1m26.8s
