Kyle Smith took his first ever pole position in the Quattro Group British Supersport Championship as the Dynavolt Triumph rider got the better of Jack Kennedy (HEL Performance/Bournemouth Kawasaki) and Bradley Perie (Appleyard Macadam Yamaha) at Knockhill on Saturday afternoon.

Kennedy and Perie, race winners at the opening round at Oulton Park, had been disputing the top spot throughout free practice but they were hotly pursued by Smith (Dynavolt Triumph), Lee Johnston (Ashcourt Racing BMW) and Ben Currie (Gearlink Kawasaki).

That trend continued into qualifying and although Perie’s lap of 49.802s saw him set the early pace, Kennedy soon moved ahead of him, firstly with a lap of 49.635s and then 49.477s.

That gave him an advantage of 0.160s over Johnston with Perie improving his time to 49.725s although that was only good enough for third. Smith, Currie and the leading GP2 Cup machine of Charlie Nesbitt (RS Racing Kalex) completed the top six at the half way stage of the session.

Johnston then improved his time to 49.623s but he got pushed back to third as Perie moved back to second after a lap of 49.580s cut the gap to Kennedy to 0.103s.

However, they were all then moved down a place after Smith hit the top spot with a lap of 49.179s, before he went quicker again at 49.153s to give him a healthy advantage of almost a third of a second over Kennedy.

There weren’t any further changes in the top four spots and Smith duly held on for his maiden pole position ahead of Kennedy, although the Dubliner did cut the deficit to 0.191s.

Perie and Johnston held station in third and fourth as Korie McGreevy (Mar-Train Racing Yamaha) moved up to an eventual fifth at the expense of Currie with Nesbitt in seventh maintaining his place as the leading GP2 Cup runner.

A late lap moved Harry Truelove (Truelove Brothers Racing Yamaha) to eighth ahead of local ace Sam Munro (Munro Racing Yamaha) with Jamie Perrin claiming tenth on the Spirit Motocorsa despite a crash in the final moments. He was the second quickest GP2 Cup rider with team-mate Mason Law the third quickest in 13th overall.

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