Shane 'Shakey' Byrne claimed his first pole position of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship season, setting a blistering pace under the lap record at Oulton Park to push Josh Brookes to second ahead of Bank Holiday Monday's races.

Byrne had shown his pace in the final free practice session this morning, but in the final Q3 session he upped the pace again to keep Brookes at bay by 0.327s to celebrate his first pole position of the season.

Byrne said:

"To be honest with you I didn't know what would be possible today in terms of lap times but I am happy to be back on pole. I did a 1m34.9s lap on a used tyre after the first run, so I was hopeful that we had a bit of pace in us for the final session, but it was pretty tight when that time popped up! I think we have done our homework here this weekend and fingers crossed we can have a good result in the races tomorrow."

Lloyds British GBmoto Racing Kawasaki secured their first front row qualifying start of the season with James Ellison holding third place as he pushed Stuart Easton on the second Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki back to row two.

Easton will be joined on the second row for the opening race tomorrow by Dan Linfoot who claimed fifth place on the grid with Tommy Bridewell moving up the order in the final moments to move sixth on the second of the Milwaukee Yamahas.

Ryuichi Kiyonari narrowly made the cut for the final Q3 session on the Buildbase BMW and he improved his pace in his final run to move seventh on the timesheets ahead of Richard Cooper as the Anvil Hire TAG Kawasaki team celebrated their first top ten qualifying position in their debut season.

Lloyds British GBmoto Racing Kawasaki worked tremendously hard between the two sessions after his fireball in the final free practice session to get Chris Walker back on circuit this afternoon; he made the cut from Q3 to secure ninth place. Jakub Smrz completed the top ten for the Millsport Ducati team as Keith Farmer on the PR Kawasaki and Jon Kirkham on the Tsingtao Kawasaki just missed out on the top ten. John Hopkins on the Tyco Suzuki was thirteenth fastest, missing out on the Q3 session.

MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship, Oulton Park, Datatag Extreme Qualifying:

Shane Byrne (Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki) 1m:34.557s
Josh Brookes (Milwaukee Yamaha) +0.327s
James Ellison (Lloyds British GBmoto Racing Kawasaki) +0.381s
Stuart Easton (Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki) +0.879s
Dan Linfoot (Quattro Plant Kawasaki) +0.939s
Tommy Bridewell (Milwaukee Yamaha) +0.992s
Ryuichi Kiyonari (Buildbase BMW) +1.069s
Richard Cooper (Anvil Hire TAG Kawasaki) +1.074s
Chris Walker (Lloyds British GBmoto Racing Kawasaki) +1.114s
Jakub Smrz (Millsport Ducati) +1.382s



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