Pole and fastest ever lap for Lavilla.

Gregorio Lavilla put in an awesome qualifying session ahead of the first round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship at Brands Hatch Indy circuit in Kent.

His time was 45.533secs - the fastest time anyone has ever lapped the roller coaster short circuit. His team-mate Leon Haslam was second fastest and just 0.048secs off his time. In fact the top four riders all lapped under the lap record time set last year by Ryuichi Kiyonari of 45.954secs.

Karl Harris was third fastest whilst his HM Plant Honda team-mate came home in an uncharacteristic seventh place. Brands isn't one of Kiyo's favourite tracks and that seems to be holding him back at the moment, but he cannot be written off yet as his race pace tends to be spectacular.

Hawk Kawasaki took up the final place on the front row of the grid, with Dean Thomas giving it his all. Thomas has progressed up the time sheets all weekend and a front row start is quite an achievement considering the team's lack of pre season testing.

The boys in blue, Rizla Suzuki's Shane Byrne and James Haydon were eighth and ninth respectively. They have also been chipping away at their times all weekend and will be on form once the lights go out on race day.

Steve Plater's back luck went from bad to worse when he crashed out at Paddock Hill bend only four minutes into the qualifying session bringing out the red flags. He has twisted his knee in the fall but hasn't broken anything.

Michael Rutter had an eventful qualifying session when his Stobart Honda had a technical fault on the exit of Druids, which left Rutter running back to the pits with only fifteen minutes of the session left to go to pick up his spare machine.

BSB qualifying results - Brands Hatch:

1.Gregorio Lavilla
2.Leon Haslam
3.Karl Harris
4.Dean Thomas
5.Johnny Rea
6.Michael Rutter
7.Ryuichi Kiyonari
8.Shane Byrne
9.James Haydon
10.Glen Richards

Louise Cain