Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam will start tomorrow’s two tenth-round World Superbike championship races at Jerez in Spain from the third row of the grid after setting the eighth-fastest time in this afternoon’s Superpole sessions.

Haslam, 31, finished this morning’s third free practice session in 11th place and therefore took part in the opening Superpole, progressing to Superpole 2 by setting the second-fastest time.

However, the British rider was pleased to have the opportunity to try an additional qualifying tyre which set him up for Superpole 2 and allowed him to improve his previous lap time by almost a second.

In 30˚C of Spanish heat this afternoon and with track temperatures again over 50˚C, Haslam’s Pata Honda team-mate Jonathan Rea and his crew struggled to find an optimum setting for the 4.423km Jerez circuit. British rider Rea, 27, will consequently start from the fourth row after setting the 10th fastest time in Superpole 2, 0.1s behind Haslam’s time.

Leon Haslam - P8, 1m41.338s

I’m not too unhappy really and we made some good progress towards our preparation for tomorrow’s races. It was a little cooler today, especially this morning, and going from hot to cool conditions makes a big difference in lap times and in set-up. It’s the first time that I’ve gone a lot quicker on a qualifying tyre compared to a race tyre so that was a bonus. We've never found 0.9s like we found today and hopefully we can translate that into the race set-up. Other than that, I’m on the third row at a track where we’ve really struggled in the past and I’m pretty happy.

Jonathan Rea - P10, 1m41.447s

It’s been a little frustrating to be honest because we were optimistic coming here with the new specification on the engine. We’ve had a few problems which is making it hard work and this is not where I want to start from. It’s been a tough weekend so far but the plan for tomorrow morning is to go back to the engine spec that we’ve been running all season. That might put us back a little with regard to electronics settings so warm-up will be crucial. But we need to do something because to race in the top five with the current setting is not possible.

Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator

Eighth position for Leon is not too bad and he also made quite a step improving his lap time on a qualifying. For the race, we still need to dial in a few things because we’re losing too much in the first split so we’ll find a solution for that. Jonathan was tenth and we hoped to make more progress than we did. We chased our tails a little with settings and we’ll make a big change for tomorrow. We’re a little bit behind compared to yesterday and our rivals have all made a jump up today.

Qualifying position

1 Loris Baz 1'40.298 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
2 Davide Giugliano 1'40.533 ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
3 Tom Sykes 1'40.561 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
4 Marco Melandri 1'40.822 ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
5 Sylvain Guintoli 1'40.877 FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
6 Eugene Laverty 1'41.092 IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
7 Chaz Davies 1'41.199 GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
8 Leon Haslam 1'41.338 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
9 Alex Lowes 1'41.421 GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
10 Jonathan Rea 1'41.447 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
11 Toni Elias 1'41.882 SPA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
12 Sylvain Barrier 1'42.928 FRA BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
13 David Salom 1'42.329 ESP KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
14 Niccolo Canepa 1'42.356 ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
15 Alessandro Andreozzi 1'42.622 ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
16 Sheridan Morais 1'43.380 RSA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
17 Jeremy Guarnoni 1'43.628 FRA KAWASAKI MRS Kawasaki
18 Bryan Staring 1'43.640 AUS KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
19 Claudio Corti 1'43.651 ITA MV AGUSTA MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
20 Imre Toth 1'44.633 HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
21 Gabor Rizmayer 1'45.590 HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
22 Geoff May 1'45.693 USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
23 Aaron Yates 1'45.929 USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
24 Luca Scassa 1'48.073 ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini

Championship standings

1 Tom Sykes 325 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
2 Sylvain Guintoli 281 pts FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
3 Jonathan Rea 261 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
4 Loris Baz 253 pts FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
5 Marco Melandri 217 pts ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
6 Chaz Davies 159 pts GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
7 Davide Giugliano 153 pts ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
8 Toni Elias 137 pts SPA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
9 Eugene Laverty 134 pts IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
10 Leon Haslam 133 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
11 Alex Lowes 119 pts GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
12 David Salom 88 pts ESP KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
13 Niccolo Canepa 51 pts ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
14 Leon Camier 37 pts GBR BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
15 Jeremy Guarnoni 33 pts FRA KAWASAKI MRS Kawasaki
16 Sylvain Barrier 21 pts FRA BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
17 Sheridan Morais 17 pts RSA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
18 Alessandro Andreozzi 17 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
19 Luca Scassa 16 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
20 Fabien Foret 14 pts FRA KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India
21 Claudio Corti 13 pts ITA MV AGUSTA MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
22 Bryan Staring 12 pts AUS KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
23 Glen Allerton 6 pts AUS BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
24 Riccardo Russo 5 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
25 Kervin Bos 5 pts NED HONDA Winteb LiquidRubber Racing T.
26 Michel Fabrizio 2 pts ITA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
27 Imre Toth 2 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
28 Roamin Lanusse 1 pts FRA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
29 Gabor Rizmayer 1 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
30 Peter Sebestyen 0 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
31 Geoff May 0 pts USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
32 Christian Iddon 0 pts GBR BIMOTA Team Alstare
33 Aaron Yates 0 pts USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR

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