Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam will start tomorrow's final two races of the 2014 World Superbike championship from the second row of the grid after setting the sixth-fastest time in this evening’s Superpole at the Losail International Circuit in Qatar.

The 31-year-old British rider has spent all weekend fine-tuning the setting on his Pata Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade and was able to extract an improved performance from his qualifying tyre in the latter stages of the Superpole session, in which Italy’s Davide Giugliano took pole position.

Haslam’s Pata Honda team-mate Jonathan Rea will start tomorrow’s two 17-lap races at the 5.380km Losail circuit from the head of row three after crashing out of contention unhurt when he took to the track on his qualifying tyre.

Rea has been at or near the top of the leaderboard in all sessions this weekend but admitted he was perhaps over-eager to secure pole position in this final event of the 2014 season as he pushes to regain third place in the series.

Tomorrow’s first two night races in the 26-year history of the World Superbike championship will go at 19.00 and 22.00 local time in Qatar which is GMT +3hrs.

Leon Haslam - P6, 1m58.005s

I’m really happy actually, and moving from the race tyre to the qualifier in Superpole, everything stayed stable which is what we’ve been aiming for all year. The last few rounds have been quite positive with the way we’ve got the balance of the bike and the way we’ve got the electronics working. I made a little mistake on the Q and I think the lap could have been a little bit quicker but I’m on the second row for the last two races of the year and I’m really, really happy.

Jonathan Rea - P7, 1m58.190s

Well, it’s not the best grid position to start the last races of the season. Throughout the practices we’ve been really strong in all the sessions and the package is working really, really well here. In the first part of Superpole I was quite competitive on a race tyre and, when it came to use the qualifier I, er... well, maybe I wanted the pole position a little bit too much! I entered turn seven a little bit too fast and tried to turn in but ran a little wide on to the dirty stuff and tucked the front. It’s frustrating because I know we had the pace to be right at the front from the beginning. It might change our tactics a little bit for tomorrow, being on the third row but, for sure, I’ll be racing for the podium. But we want to win because I think the CBR is working really well here and that&r squo;s a real possibility.

Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator

Leon showed immediately in Superpole that he was quite strong and he was able to improve another seven tenths when we put in the qualifier, which brought him the second row. That is really good and I’m happy to see him there; maybe some last tweaks to the bike in warm-up and I’m sure he can fight in the top five. Jonathan has been fast in all sessions this weekend and in the first part of Superpole on the race tyre. Unfortunately he had a small crash on the qualifier but that still gives him seventh position on the grid. Knowing that he has the pace to fight for the victory, I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s races.

Qualifying position

1 Davide Giugliano 1'57.033 ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
2 Loris Baz 1'57.281 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
3 Tom Sykes 1'57.468 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
4 Chaz Davies 1'57.562 GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
5 Sylvain Guintoli 1'57.833 FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
6 Leon Haslam 1'58.005 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
7 Jonathan Rea 1'58.190 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
8 Marco Melandri 1'58.355 ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
9 Eugene Laverty 1'58.379 IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
10 Toni Elias 1'58.583 SPA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
11 Alex Lowes 1'58.919 GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
12 David Salom 1'59.015 ESP KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
13 Sylvain Barrier 1'58.918 FRA BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
14 Niccolo Canepa 1'59.492 ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
15 Alessandro Andreozzi 1'59.601 ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
17 Bryan Staring 2'00.638 AUS KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
18 Jeremy Guarnoni 2'00.817 FRA KAWASAKI MRS Kawasaki
19 Geoff May 2'01.860 USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
20 Sheridan Morais -- RSA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
21 Claudio Corti -- ITA MV AGUSTA MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
22 Aaron Yates -- USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
23 Gabor Rizmayer -- HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
24 Imre Toth -- HUN BMW BMW Team Toth


Championship standings

1 Tom Sykes 378 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
2 Sylvain Guintoli 366 pts FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
3 Marco Melandri 312 pts ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
4 Jonathan Rea 301 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
5 Loris Baz 282 pts FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
6 Chaz Davies 195 pts GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
7 Leon Haslam 176 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
8 Davide Giugliano 162 pts ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
9 Eugene Laverty 154 pts IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
10 Toni Elias 151 pts SPA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
11 Alex Lowes 126 pts GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
12 David Salom 95 pts ESP KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
13 Niccolo Canepa 65 pts ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
14 Jeremy Guarnoni 45 pts FRA KAWASAKI MRS Kawasaki
15 Sylvain Barrier 38 pts FRA BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
16 Leon Camier 37 pts GBR BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
17 Claudio Corti 25 pts ITA MV AGUSTA MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
18 Sheridan Morais 24 pts RSA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
19 Alessandro Andreozzi 21 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
20 Fabien Foret 20 pts FRA KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India
21 Lorenzo lanzi 19 pts ITA DUCATI 3C Racing Team
22 Max Neukirchner 17 pts GER DUCATI 3C Racing Team
23 Luca Scassa 16 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
24 Bryan Staring 14 pts AUS KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
25 Gabor Rizmayer 7 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
26 Glen Allerton 6 pts AUS BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
27 Riccardo Russo 5 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
28 Kervin Bos 5 pts NED HONDA Winteb LiquidRubber Racing T.
29 Imre Toth 5 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
30 Michel Fabrizio 2 pts ITA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
31 Roamin Lanusse 1 pts FRA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
32 Peter Sebestyen 0 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
33 Nicolas Salchaud 0 pts FRA MV AGUSTA Dream Team Company
34 Geoff May 0 pts USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
35 Christian Iddon 0 pts GBR BIMOTA Team Alstare
36 Aaron Yates 0 pts USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR

.