Tom Sykes and Loris Baz each lost a chance to take pole position after rain appeared in the final Superpole session, cancelling the result and bringing forward a final 20-minute ‘Wet’ Superpole.

In what was the fourth Superpole session on track, but by regulation the third and final one as the results stood, Loris was fourth and Sykes fifth, meaning they will each start Sunday’s races from the second row of the grid.

At his home round Sykes initially set a remarkable 2’03.362 second lap in the eventually cancelled Superpole Three (with Baz right behind him and also under the previous track best) but that time was nullified when the session was red flagged with four minutes to go.

The re-run Superpole Three eventually delivered dry conditions, but in changeable early wet conditions Baz was fastest, before he was finally pushed to fourth place as the track dried at the end.

After the confusion of the final Superpole qualifying sessions both top Kawasaki riders are still in strong positions for raceday itself, after finding good solutions for the Silverstone challenge relatively late on in race weekend.

They each now face two 18-lap races on Sunday, with Tom looking to add to his season tally of five race wins, and Loris trying to repeat his first career win at Silverstone in 2012.

Mark Aitchison (Kawasaki Team Pedercini) was 16th after regulation qualifying, one place up on Federico Sandi (Kawasaki Team Pedercini).

Jeremy Guarnoni (MRS Kawasaki) was the top Ninja ZX-10R rider in the FIM Superstock 1000 Cup combined qualifying sheets in fourth and leading a run of five Kawasaki riders from fourth to eighth place.

Tom Sykes:

“If those are the rules then that’s what happens but at least we got back to the second row and not the third. There had four minutes left of the session when they stopped it and turned it into a wet Superpole. I am far from happy because nobody even looked at a wet tyre. On the positive side tomorrow is another day and row two is not too bad. We have struggled a little bit all weekend but when it really mattered Kawasaki, the boys, and especially my crew chief Marcel have given me a package that I was able to do something good with. I was more comfortable on the bike in that session and the lap time was not so bad. I was riding easier than I had been all weekend. My qualifying time that got cut was really good. I will just re-set myself for tomorrow now. It is the race result that counts, second row is good and we have a strong race setting.”

Loris Baz:

“I do not know whether to be happy or gutted! This morning when I woke up I never thought that I would be able to get fourth place after Superpole. Honestly I do not understand the rule that we have to stop in Superpole three and then have 20 minutes of ‘wet’ Superpole. All the same I made a very good time in Superpole – can I say – Superpole ‘four’. Then the track dried out near the end and I was able to take the top position again, until I got stuck behind another rider in two crucial corners. That was a big shame and maybe it just was not my day. I am really confident for tomorrow now and I want to thank my team who did a mega job yet again.”

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