Haslam takes pole in dramatic qualifying

Leon Haslam will start on pole position for tomorrow’s first MCE British Superbike race at Oulton Park, holding off team-mate James Ellison and Australia’s Jason O’Halloran to take the top spot in an incident-packed qualifying.

The opening Q1 session faced delays after a technical problem for Glenn Irwin’s BeWiser Ducati saw the track contaminated with oil. As the re-started session got underway, it began to look as though there could be a number of big-named casualties but late laps from the likes of Tommy Bridewell and Luke Mossey saw them scrape through to Q2. MotoRapido Ducati’s Danny Buchan wasn’t so fortunate, crashing out of the session with seven minutes to go.  

Drama struck in Q2 as championship leader Shane Byrne highsided out at Knickerbrook moments after saving a front-end lock-up on the BeWiser Ducati meaning he’s left to start tomorrow’s first race from 18^th on the grid.

Dan Linfoot heads up row two on his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade ahead of Tyco BMW’s Christian Iddon, who held pole for a large part of the final Q3 session. Team-mate Michael Laverty lines up alongside the former supermoto ace.

Alastair Seeley will start seventh after an impressive showing on the RAF Briggs Equipment BMW with youngsters Jack Kennedy and Lee Jackson rounding out the top ten.

Winner last time out, Peter Hickman will start 14^th, ahead of John Hopkins and Billy McConnell.