Yamaha World Superbike rider Ben Spies was back on form today, working up speed through the Superpole sessions to end the final heat with an incredible lap, smashing last year’s record by nearly seven tenths and leaving the other qualifying riders nearly five tenths of a second behind.

The ten poles by Spies mean he has now equaled Doug Polen’s 1991 record for the number of pole position starts in a season.

Spies also enjoyed a productive earlier qualifying session, continuing to fine tune the set up for tomorrow’s two races, he ended in second behind Michel Fabrizio.

Tom Sykes had worked solidly through qualifying, hitting ninth position by midway.  As the session drew to a close he ended with a provisional 13th on the grid in advance of qualifying.

An unfortunate crash in free practice in the afternoon session deprived him of his number one bike, throwing the British rider off balance for the Superpole heats.  Despite the setback Sykes still made it through to the second Superpole session and will start tomorrow’s two races from 14th position on the grid.

Ben Spies, Yamaha World Superbike Team, (1st, 1′37.709): “The Superpole lap was a great lap, we’ve spent the weekend and the qualifying sessions working more on race tires and fuel loads and really looking to make sure the bike is ready come Sunday.

Superpole was the first time we really got down to banging out a lap and it was a good one.  It’s good to see Johnny is up there again, it’s pretty much the same four guys as last time so it should be a good race.

I don’t think anybody is going to be getting away and I think it will be settled in the last few laps. I’m pretty confident with the bike so I’m happy going into Sunday.”

Circuit Length: 4411 m

Record: 1′40.601 (Lorenzo Lanzi, 01/01/2005)

Fastest Lap Ever: 1′37.709 (Ben Spies, 04/10/2009)

Last Year’s Winner: Troy Bayliss

Pos. Rider Manu. Nat. Total Time

1 Ben Spies Yamaha USA 1′37.709

2 Jonathan Rea Honda GBR 1′38.191

3 Michel Fabrizio Ducati ITA 1′38.196

4 Max Biaggi Aprilia ITA 1′38.235

5 Noriyuki Haga Ducati JPN 1′38.365

6 Leon Haslam Honda GBR 1′38.625

7 Fonsi Nieto Ducati ESP 1′38.670

8 Troy Corser BMW AUS 1′39.114

9 Shane Byrne Ducati GBR 1′38.831

10 Jakub Smrz Ducati CZE 1′38.844

11 Karl Muggeridge Suzuki AUS 1′38.851

12 Carlos Checa Honda ESP 1′38.924

13 Yukio Kagayama Suzuki JPN 1′39.148

14 Tom Sykes Yamaha GBR 1′39.361

15 Ruben Xaus BMW ESP 1′39.444

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