British Superbikes: Shane Byrne on Thruxton pole

Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne has secured his second pole on the season, adding to the fastest qualifying lap he set at Brands Hatch a fortnight ago.

Byrne set a pole lap of 1.19.704 – just four seconds slower than Cal Crutchlow’s pace-setting lap of 1.16.071 in the dry yesterday.

The rain has intermittently been falling throughout the day meaning all the sessions of the day so far have been wet sessions.

And to be on pole appeared to become a bit of a shock to Shakey.

“I’m really surprised I’m on pole,” said Byrne.

“We took a last minute gamble because we were struggling to decide whether to go out on drys or wets.

“We went out of the softest wets and they worked – credit to the team as it was their idea and not mine.

“It was a bit of a transition over the last twenty minutes as the track beginning to dry. Given a little more time I think we could have gone out on intermediates.”

Byrne set the BSB season on fire at Brands with a dominant performance in every session two weeks ago, but with snow putting a hold on the Kent race weekend Shakey didn’t get to transfer his superior performance into a race.

“We were disappointed not to race at Brands so we really want to get a win here.”

Leon Haslam will start from second tomorrow ahead of his team-mate Cal Crutchlow in fourth with the pair of HM Plant Honda’s split by Michael Rutter’s NW200 Ducati.

The second row will be made up of Karl Harris’ Rob Mac Yamaha who has been running upfront all weekend, the much improved Leon Camier in sixth, the hugely impressive Adam Jenkinson in seventh and Michael Laverty finally leapfrogging his younger brother John on the Buildbase Ducati Cup bike who lines up one place behind him.

RESULTS

1. Shane Byrne
2. Leon Haslam
3. Michael Rutter
4. Cal Crutchlow
5. Karl Harris
6. Leon Camier
7. Adam Jenkinson
8. Michael Laverty
9. John Laverty
10. Sean Emmett
11. Atsushi Watanabe
12. Tom Sykes
13. Simon Andrews
14. Chris Burns
15. James Ellison
16. Billy McConnell