The young Briton worked all day trying to find a good race set-up and did not even use any soft tyres during the timed session this afternoon, when his best lap was set on race rubber.

His team mate Sylvain Guintoli continued to improve his understanding of his GSX-R1000 Suzuki and finished qualifying with the eighth quickest time.

Spaniard Carlos Checa (Ducati) posted the fastest time in qualifying, with Michel Fabrizio (Ducati) second.

Leon Haslam - 3rd, 1:32.373:

“I am really happy with today because we are well on the way to finding a good set-up for the race on Sunday. We tried all three different tyres and now we have good ideas about which one we will use depending on the conditions. I didn’t even use a soft tyre this afternoon and my fastest lap was done on ordinary race rubber.

“The differing temperatures have given us different challenges, but I’m pretty confident about the bike’s set-up, unless of course it rains and then we’ll all be in trouble. The track felt a bit slippery and greasy today, because of the hotter temperatures, and the wind was a bit of a problem in turns 1 and 2 and sector 4, but it was the same for everybody and we just had to cope with it. No problems really today, except that I heard from home this morning that my 19 year-old dog had died. He’s had a good, long life, but he will be missed.”

Sylvain Guintoli - 8th, 1:32.902:

“We’ve made a good step forward today - maybe part of it was down to me using my right hand better - and I am really loving riding the bike. We tried many different settings and also did a lot of work on trying to improve the tyre life and, like Leon, I did my best lap on normal race rubber.

“At the moment, I am struggling a bit finding problems with the bike and everything is going very well. That’s also down to the hard work put in by the whole team and we are feeling good about our prospects on Sunday. First aim tomorrow morning is getting into Superpole. After that, we’ll see what happens.”

Friday WSB qualifying:

1 Checa (ESP-Ducati) 1:32.155,
2 Fabrizio (ITA-Ducati) 1:32.162,
3 Leon Haslam (GBR-Suzuki Alstare) 1:32.373,
4 Byrne (GBR-Ducati) 1:32.635,
5 Haga (JPN-Ducati) 1:32.703,
6 Biaggi (ITA-Aprilia) 1:32.850.
8 Sylvain Guintoli (FRA-Suzuki Alstare) 1:32.902.