First qualifying of the ninth round of World Superbikes took place this afternoon at England’s Silverstone track and it couldn’t have gone better for Althea Racing and rider Carlos Checa, who dominated from start to finish to take provisional pole for Sunday’s races.

The Althea Racing rider, championship leader after the first eight rounds, faced first free practice with his usual determination, lapping fast right from the outset and topping the timesheets after just twenty minutes. He remained inside the top five for the duration of the session, closing with a best time of 2m07.1, recorded in the final stages. This time meant that he concluded practice in final fifth position.

In the afternoon’s first qualifying session, Carlos made a very convincing first exit, almost immediately recording a 2m06.0 and lowering by a full second his best time set this morning. This time remained the overall quickest until ten minutes from the end of the session when the Spanish rider was able to further improve with an incredibly quick lap (2m05.4). Consistently fast throughout the entire session, Checa closed the qualifying session four tenths of a second ahead of any other rider.

Carlos Checa:

“Today went well. We have already improved with respect to last year. With the soft tyre we were able to make some very fast laps and we’re satisfied. The problem may arrive tomorrow as temperatures will probably be warmer and we’ll have to see how the tyres go in different conditions. All in all, seeing as this is one of the more difficult tracks for us, we are happy. We just have to minimize the disadvantage that we have along the straight but I think we can do it; we’ll see tomorrow but I’m pretty confident.”

TIMES (QUALIFYING):

1. Checa (Ducati) 2’05.4; 2. Berger (Ducati) 2’05.8; 3. Sykes (Kawasaki) 2’05.8; 4. Camier (Aprilia) 2’05.9; 5. Hopkins (Suzuki) 2’05.9; 6. Fabrizio (Suzuki) 2’06.0; 7. Smrz (Ducati) 2’06.0; 8. Laverty (Yamaha) 2’06.0