Leon Haslam powered to pole start for the double race tenth round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship at record breaking pace and with his team-mate Gregorio Lavilla securing a front row start the two Airwaves Ducati riders are aiming to dominate at Cadwell Park.

The Spaniard, who is third in the standings needs to fully capitalise on a below par performance by the series leading HM Plant Honda duo of Michael Rutter and Ryuichi Kiyonari who struggled throughout.

In contrast, Haslam was flying. The 22 year old Derbyshire rider smashed almost a second off the previous Cadwell Park pole time and 1.9 seconds off the lap records and that in sessions in which he also completed two full race distances to ensured his bike has optimum set-up: “I'm looking forward to these races and feeling good. My time might well have been better but there was so much traffic out on circuit that I was unable to get a clear run.”

Even so Haslam, en route to a third pole of the campaign, lapped the 2.18 mile Lincolnshire circuit in a flying time of 1m 27.280secs, almost half a second up on 20 year old Linfield rider Tommy Hill, who was enjoying his best qualifying performance of the season aboard the Virgin Mobile Samsung Yamaha.

Gregorio Lavilla, the Spanish rider who is third in the standings, 30 points down on series leader Michael Rutter, powered his Airwaves Ducati onto the front row of the grid, third fastest, ahead of the Honda in the hands of Karl Harris.

“This is a tricky circuit, and though the two Honda riders have struggled in qualifying I still expect them to be running with me in the races - I am in a good position for the races and the minor changes we made to the bike between the sessions worked well for me.

“Good points here are going to be very important for me, as I then race on circuits that I know and enjoy,” smiled Lavilla.

Rutter, meanwhile, was having a struggling time, compounded by tipping off, without injury during the afternoon session. “It was my own fault, I was pushing on too hard.” He was uninjured but had to settle for seventh place of the leaderboard, and with it a second row start.

His HM Plant Honda team-mate, and nearest rival, by 26 points in the title stakes, Kiyonari, missed the opportunity of improving his eleventh place, and third row start, with a mistimed stop to pop in a rear qualifying tyre which did not allow sufficient time to complete a flying lap of the circuit.

The Japanese rider suffered the indignity of being out-qualified by British Superbike Cup leader James Buckingham who ran a tenth of a second faster aboard his `budget-deal' Quay Garage Suzuki - the young Devonian ran tenth fastest, embarrassing a number of other factor riders, among them the reigning champion John Reynolds aboard the Rizla Suzuki who set twelfth best time.

ends