Today saw an unfortunate start to the 2012 Superbike World Championship at Phillip Island in Australia as the traditional Superpole qualifying session was cancelled due to an earlier fatal incident at the track, which halted proceedings for a considerable time.

As such, the combined qualifying times from Friday afternoon and Saturday morning will determine the line-up for tomorrow’s two 22-lap races at the 4.445 km circuit. This means that BMW Motorrad Motorsport’s Leon Haslam will start 12th on the grid, just in front of new team-mate Marco Melandri.

Haslam had undergone surgery on a fractured tibia on Thursday morning but bravely fought the pain barrier to complete two flying laps yesterday and just 12 in this morning’s session. Melandri, however, improved his fastest time yesterday by 0.4 of a second earlier today and then went on to post the third fastest time in the afternoon’s free practice session.


BMW Motorrad Italia Goldbet new signing Michel Fabrizio qualified 10th fastest today and will start from the third row, while Ayrton Badovini struggled to find an optimum setting for his RR and qualified on the fifth row, in 20th place.

Of the 24 riders lining up for each Superbike race tomorrow, six of them will be campaigning the formidable RR. In addition to the four riders already mentioned, two Australians will also be on BMW machinery. Mark Aitchison will be contesting the entire season on an RR for the Grillini Progea Superbike Team, while David Johnson has a wildcard entry on the Rossair AEP Racing RR.

.