Ryuichi Kiyonari starts the ninth round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship at Mallory Park from pole position, ahead of his HM Plant Honda team-mate Jonathan Rea, with the Airwaves Ducati duo of Leon Haslam and Gregorio Lavilla completing the front row of the grid.

The starting positions were confirmed according to standings in the title stakes after heavy rain overnight had caused problems and delays on Saturday morning with standing water on the track and run off areas at the Leicestershire circuit.

This required lengthy and time-consuming work by marshals and circuit staff, re-inforced by mechanical sweepers and pumps with the event being rescheduled to provide free practice sessions for all classes on both Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.

Stuart Higgs, the Race and Series Director confirmed the cancellation of all qualifying sessions, running only practice, and the use of current championship positions to determined grid positions for all races.

Several teams, including HM Plant Honda, Airwaves Ducati, Stobart Honda and Rizla Suzuki opted out of the Saturday afternoon free practice but Tommy Hill, riding the Virgin Media Optoma Loans Yamaha made good use of the 40 minutes of track time putting in 19 laps, the best of which came in 61.472secs, an average speed of 82.57mph.

Hill ran a little over half a second up on Michael Rutter, riding the Isilon MSS Discover Kawasaki, with Tristan Palmer, aboard the THR Honda lapping in 62.413secs, ahead of Lee Jackson, making a seasonal debut into the top flight riding the Krystal Yamaha with a best lap of 62.822secs.

Local favourite Malcolm Ashley, despite a foot injury sustained in a heavy crash in the previous round, ran fifth best on the MAR Kawasaki, with a time of 63.392secs, ahead of Brian McCormack, Dean Thomas on the Samsung Suzuki and Chris Martin.

ends.