Samsung Honda’s Alex Lowes (above) will start from pole position in tomorrow’s opening MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship race at Thruxton ahead of Tyco Suzuki’s PJ Jacobsen. Shane Byrne (Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki) and Josh Brookes (Tyco Suzuki) complete the front row of the grid.
The Datatag Extreme Qualifying session was cancelled due to track conditions following heavy rainfall, the grid then being decided from combined free practice times.
PJ Jacobsen
“Yeah, I definitely could have done with a lot more track time but I’m happy enough how qualifying went in the circumstances. I still have a lot to work on out there as the track is brand new to me, even though my lap time was pretty fast. I feel comfortable doing it but there’s still a lot to be gained, so we will do what we do in morning warm-up and look forward to race one.”
Josh Brookes
“I’m not really that bothered about my starting position, as if the bike is right I can come from anywhere on the grid, like I did last year, and beat anyone round here. I just needed the track time today, which we lost, to get the suspension set-up and perfected, as it isn’t quite right yet. I want to get on top of that first and foremost. We’ve made changes but we’ll just have to see where we are now in morning warm-up as we didn’t get to try it today.”
Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Waters will start from the second row of the grid in seventh alongside Michael Rutter (Bathams Honda) in sixth and Chris Walker (Quattro Plant Bournemouth Kawasaki) in eighth position.
Josh Waters
“A second row start isn’t too bad as I can hopefully get in and follow the lead group in the races tomorrow. We made some changes so we will see what the weather does in the morning; there are certain sections where I know I need to work at a bit more in warm up so we can see where we are at tomorrow. Hopefully we can have two strong races for Milwaukee Yamaha.”
Thruxton Qualifying (combined free practice results)
1. Alex Lowes, Samsung Honda
2. PJ Jacobsen, Tyco Suzuki
3. Shane Byrne, Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki
4. Josh Brookes, Tyco Suzuki
5. Jacob Smrz, Padgetts Honda
6. Michael Rutter, Bathams Honda
7. Josh Waters, Milwaukee Yamaha
8. Chris Walker (Quattro Plant Bournemouth Kawasaki)
9. John Kirkham, Buildbase BMW
10. James Westmoreland (Buildbase BMW)
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