Jakub Smrz powered his privateer Guandalini Ducati 1098 to the top slot on the first day of Superbike qualifying at his home circuit of Brno as twin-cylinder Italian machines filled seven of the top 10 places.

The 25 year-old Czech rider lowered the previous circuit best lap by almost half-a-second to end up with a time of 1 minute 59.125 seconds, almost five-tenths quicker than Noriyuki Haga's benchmark set last year on a Yamaha.

The first of the four-cylinder machines was Troy Corser's Yamaha Motor Italia WSB R1, the Australian holding up well to the twin-cylinder opposition in second slot, three-tenths of a second down on Smrz. The provisional front row was completed by two more potential candidates for the win on Sunday, Troy Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) and Max Biaggi (Sterilgarda Go Eleven Ducati).

A good performance was also produced by Lorenzo Lanzi (RG Ducati) in fifth, the Italian getting the better of Spain's Fonsi Nieto (Suzuki Alstare), who was the only other rider to dip under 2 minutes, and Michel Fabrizio (Ducati Xerox), who crashed in the morning session. The Ducati factory man was a fraction ahead of his wild-card team-mate Niccolò Canepa, who is making his World Superbike debut, while Max Neukircher (Alstare Suzuki), second in the championship, headed up the provisional row 3.

Down in tenth place was Misano winner, Ruben Xaus (Sterilgarda Go Eleven Ducati), while Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia WSB) is yet to get dialed in to the Brno weekend and the Japanese rider is currently languishing in the 12th slot. Carlos Checa (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda) was even further off the pace, the Spaniard down in 15th, one place behind his brother David (Yamaha France Ipone GMT 94).

FIM Supersport World Championship

Provisional pole in Supersport qualifying went to Australian Broc Parkes (Yamaha World Supersport), who set his fastest lap of 2 minutes 3.604 seconds ten minutes from the end of the session.

Fellow countryman Joshua Brookes (Hannspree Stiggy Motorsport Honda) was three-tenths behind in second place, the two Aussies the only two riders to dip under the 2'04” mark. Parkes' time was over 1 second quicker than the circuit best lap, set by Sofuoglu last year.

Championship leader Andrew Pitt (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda) made it three Aussies on the front row, but Craig Jones (Parkalgar Honda) prevented a clean sweep for ‘down under', the British rider edging out Mark Aitchison (Triumph Italia BE1) for the fourth slot by two-tenths.

Frenchman Fabien Foret (Yamaha World Supersport) had two crashes today, suffering concussion and a cracked vertebra in the second, injuries that will keep him out of this weekend's race.

© CAPSIS International