James Haydon splashed to the top of the free practice leaderboard for the

double race eighth round of the THINK! British Superbike Championship at

rain-lashed Knockhill, outpacing his Virgin Mobile Samsung Yamaha team-mate

Gary Mason, but title chasing Michael Rutter was well on the pace.

The HM Plant Honda Fireblade rider needs strong, positive results at the

tight, 1.299 mile Scottish circuit after losing ground to his rival John

Reynolds in the previous round at Brands Hatch. There, the Rizla Suzuki

rider amazingly won the first race, despite the pain from a left collarbone

that he had broken only two weeks earlier, and, but for a slow puncture, he

might well have take a winning double.

As Reynolds racked up the points, Rutter struggled, taking a fifth place,

and then hampered by an electrical problem finishing back in fourteenth, to

leave the Kent circuit with a deficit of 29 points.

"I feel confident that I can make up the points difference, especially as

some of my favourite tracks are still to come, and I am hoping to win at

least one of the races here - I'm only 29 points down and still have a good

chance of taking the title," said Rutter whose best lap came in a time of

53.026s, half a second down on Haydon, but significantly 0.7 seconds up on

Reynolds who was sixth fastest.

Reynolds is not too concerned: "My broken collarbone is still a bit sore. I

was pleasantly surprised by how strong it was at Brands Hatch and I have

been doing a lot of healing since then and it will not stop me from pushing

hard for two wins here."

Iain Macpherson, making his second appearance aboard the Scottish based ETI

Ducati, was marginally slower than Reynolds, and, like everyone else, had

hoped to increase the pace in the second session, but conditions

deteriorated with Ryuichi Kiyonari one of the few riders to improve their

times before he slid off at the Hairpin without injury.

ends.