Qualifying three
James Ellison - 44.728
Luke Mossey - 44.931
Leon Haslam - 44.933
McAMS Yamaha’s James Ellison blitzed the rest of the MCE British Superbike pack to make his way to pole with an historic lap within the 44 second barrier, at the Brands Hatch Indy circuit.
The Cumbrian set the fastest-ever lap with a phenomenal 44.728. He was chased hard by the JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s of Luke Mossey and Leon Haslam but the R1 held firm and went two tenths quicker than the ZX-10RR’s.
Mossey, who has been up the sharp end all weekend lapped a 44.931, with Haslam putting down a nearly identical time of a 44.933. All the front row clocked their fastest time on only their second lap.
The Panigale of the reigning champion, Shane Byrne heads row two. The Be Wiser backed machine set a 45.030, and was also so close to a sub 45 lap this afternoon.
The Moto Rapido Ducati of John Hopkins went fifth fastest with his best lap time of the weekend so far - a 45.044, with Honda Racing's Jason O'Halloran gaining pace all the time to complete the second row.
Tyco BMW's Christian Iddon, Anvil Hire TAG Yamaha's Josh Brookes and McAMS Yamaha's Michael Laverty make up row three for the first of the two BSB races on Monday.
Qualifying two
James Ellison - 45.009
Luke Mossey - 45.064
Josh Brookes - 45.157
Ellison was only 0.009 off a lap inside the 44’s, but he did enough to top the timesheets during the second qualifying session, and edged ahead of Mossey and Brookes to bag provisional pole.
Haslam was narrowly close to being in the elimination zone, and even after a last lap dash remained ninth fastest, and 0.01s separated the JG Speedfit Kawasaki rider and Honda Racing’s Dan Linfoot.
The Fireblade rider has improved his pace over the course of the weekend but was pipped by Haslam to the post and will start P10 for race one tomorrow. Linfoot was joined in the drop zone by Smrz - who found a solid pace this afternoon, Mackenzie, Irwin, Dixon and Bridewell.
Former World Superbike champion, Sylvain Guintoli has been inside the top ten times this weekend, but his pace was not enough to make it into the final qualifying session. The Frenchman was not alone as Hickman and Winfield did not progress either.
Eliminated
Linfoot
Smrz
Mackenzie
Irwin
Dixon
Bridewell
Guintoli
Hickman
Winfield
Qualifying one
Luke Mossey 44.916
James Ellison 45.293
Shane Byrne 45.379
Mossey came out of the garage all guns blazing and on only his third rotation went into the 44’s, and broke the outright lap record. The ZX-10RR racer was the only person in the session to hit the 44 barrier with a super quick 44.916.
Ellison and Byrne were on point too, and both lapped in the low 45’s. Linfoot, Iddon and Haslam also put in some strong times to ease in to second qualifying.
One rider who was missing from proceedings was Tyco BMW’s Davide Giugliano. He is still feeling sore after a free practice crash yesterday, and decided to sit out the qualifying session.
During the first qualifying outing drops of rain started to fall in all sectors after five minutes, but the rain shower managed to pass over the Kent circuit quite quickly, only to return in moments later - and then stop again.
It was close at the bottom of the timing-screens, as Mackenzie only marginally made it through to Q2 by one tenth of a second, but Brad Ray was unable to gain the pace to make it out of the elimination zone.
His team had work to do after a big crash and had to change a lot on his Suzuki. McConnell, Jackson and Zanotti were also eliminated. James Westmoreland only completed one lap and then went back to the pits, with what looked to be a technical problem.
Eliminated
Ray
McConnell
Jackson
Zanotti
Westmoreland
