For Spies, who finished round one in fourth after a crash and a race win, the most important thing is to be ahead of his rivals.

Spies said after winning the Superpole qualifying session on Friday: "The most important thing is being on the front row with this many fast guys. I almost ruined my lap but we eventually got the job done.

"Race pace is looking promising, which is important but I feel sure it's going to be a hard race tomorrow.

"You still have to search for the speed and find the limit in superpole, I don't know anything different, it's the only one I've done but it's working well for me so far."

Spies topped the timesheets with a best lap of one minute, 57.280 seconds ahead of the Guandalini Ducati of Jakub Smrz, the Aprilia of Max Biaggi and the Ducati Xerox machine of Nori Haga.

Spies' team-mate Tom Sykes was fifth quickest with Shinya Nakano (Aprilia), Carlos Checa (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda) and Shane Byrne (Sterilgarda Ducati) completing the second row.

One of the big shocks of the new superpole format saw the elimination of Max Neukirchner (Suzuki Alstare) and Jonathan Rea (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda) in the first run and they will now start from row five.

BMW team-mates Ruben Xaus and Troy Corser (BMW) and Michel Fabrizio (Ducati Xerox) all failed to make the final cut.

Leading positions after Superpole:

1 Ben Spies (USA) Yamaha 1min 57.280secs,
2 Jakub Smrz (Cze) Ducati 1:57.384,
3 Max Biaggi (Ita) Aprilia 1:57.694,
4 Noriyuki Haga (Jpn) Ducati 1:57.850,
5 Tom Sykes (Gbr) Yamaha 1:57.878,
6 Shinya Nakano (Jpn) Aprilia 1:58.755,
7 Carlos Checa (Spa) Honda 1:59.090,
8 Shane Byrne (Gbr) Ducati 2:00.021,
9 Roberto Rolfo (Ita) Honda 1:58.734,
10 Michel Fabrizio (Ita) Ducati 1:58.919,
11 Regis Laconi (Fra) Ducati 1:59.044,
12 Ryuichi Kiyonari (Jpn) Honda 1:59.055,
13 Broc Parkes (Aus) Kawasaki 1:59.074,
14 Yukio Kagayama (Jpn) Suzuki 1:59.134,
15 Ruben Xaus (Spa) BMW 1:59.435