Jack Kennedy took pole position, his ninth from nine meetings, for the opening Quattro Group British Supersport Championship race of the weekend at Oulton Park, the already crowned champion putting his Mar-Train Racing Yamaha more than three tenths of a second ahead of Jack Scott (Kovara Project/RS Racing One) with Luke Stapleford (Gearlink Kawasaki) a further tenth of a second back in third.

Bradley Perie (Appleyard Macadam Yamaha) set the early pace with a 1’38.994s putting him almost half a second quicker than Jaimie van Sikkelerus (MKM Routz Racing Yamaha) but that soon changed with Kennedy jumping up to first with a 1’37.840s.
 
That initially gave him an advantage of more than a second, but Lee Johnston (Ashcourt Racing Yamaha) cut the deficit to 0.704s to go second before Perie pushed him back to third, his own lap of 1’38.441s seeing him close to within 0.652s of the flying Kennedy.
 
Scott was again comfortably leading the way in the GP2 field, slotting into fourth overall, with Stapleford and van Sikkelerus running in fifth and sixth respectively after ten minutes of the 25-minute session.
 
A couple of minutes later, Kennedy strengthened his hold on pole position with a quicker lap of 1’37.643s extending his lead over Perie to 0.798s. One man out of luck though was Paul Jordan, the Prez Racing Yamaha rider crashing at the Water Tower.
 
After a mid-session lull, changes began to happen in the final eight minutes, Harry Truelove the first mover as he jumped up from outside the top six to second on the second Appleyard machine. He didn’t stay there long though as Scott relegated him to third shortly afterwards and although Kennedy went quicker at 1’37.299s, his advantage was now only 0.328s.
 
That meant Perie and Johnston were pushed back to fourth and fifth respectively with Rhys Irwin (Astro-JJR Triumph) now inside the top six but Perie climbed back up to third and the front row with four minutes to go with Irwin also moving up to fourth. Indeed, Truelove suddenly found himself back in seventh as Jamie Perrin (Yamaha) and Stapleford also upped their pace.
 
The top two remained the same but with less than a minute to go, Stapleford pushed Perie off the front row with Irwin and Perrin holding onto their fifth and sixth positions. The third row was made up of Johnston, Truelove and Damon Rees on the second Ashcourt machine with Luke Jones (Highsparks Ducati) completing the top ten.

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