Haslam charges to pole in tricky conditions

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Leon Haslam has stormed to pole position for the 2018 Bennetts British Superbike championship season opener at Donington Park in challenging qualifying conditions to lead a JG Speedfit Kawasaki 1-2.

Due to a schedule reshuffle the first qualifying session of the year was pushed forward to immediately after a shortened final free practice, with race one set to take place on Sunday, which cut down preparation time for all riders.

Haslam, pole-sitter at his home circuit 12 months ago, duly converted his impress free practice pace with a 1m 29.128s and despite the cold track conditions went within three-tenths of the lap record.

Haslam’s lap gave him a huge margin over the chasing pack with JG Speedfit Kawasaki teammate Luke Mossey holding on to second place from defending BSB champion Shane Byrne by just 0.001s.

Anvil Hire TAG Yamaha’s James Ellison heads up row two having narrowly missed out on the front row by 0.023s with Danny Buchan impressing on his return to BSB with FS-3 Racing Kawasaki to take the middle of the second row ahead of Honda Racing’s Jason O’Halloran.

A number of riders found the cold and windy conditions tricky, particularly at Craner Curves which is the first left-hander turn on the circuit, with four riders going down at the same spot. The issue appeared to be down to a cold left-hand side of the Pirelli front tyre with the majority of crashes being low-sides on the off-camber corner.

Christian Iddon (Tyco BMW), Jakub Smrz (Lloyd & Jones PR Racing BMW), Taylor Mackenzie (Moto Rapido Ducati) and Sylvain Barrier (Smiths Racing BMW) all tipped off at Craner Curves while Tommy Bridewell and Gino Rea were also fallers during the 30-minute qualifying session.

In the earlier FP3 session Tarran Mackenzie and Jake Dixon were others to suffer similar fates but their respective McAMS Yamaha and RAF Regulars & Reserves Kawasaki teams to get back out on track for qualifying.

Bradley Ray heads up row three for Buildbase Suzuki ahead of Pete Hickman and Dan Linfoot with Glenn Irwin 10^th, Dixon 11^th and Michael Laverty completing row four.