Hodgson storms to Oschersleben pole

Neil Hodgson took a stunning Superpole to top the grid going into Sunday’s WSB round at Oschersleben today.

His time of 1:26.502 was good enough to hold off Honda’s Colin Edwards and repeats his pole here in 2001.

The HM Plant Ducati rider said afterwards: ” Yeah, it’s great. We came here last year and although we grabbed pole, we had no race settings so the actual race itself wasn’t that good.

” This year I’ve done loads of laps on race tyres, probably the most out of anyone here. So, hopefully we’ll go just as good in tomorrow’s race. But it’s going to be a hard job for anyone to beat Colin Edwards. ”

Edwards has been consistently fast all weekend. The Texan’s SP-2 features a number of different settings and minor tweaks, including a return to twin pipes and a brand new oil just developed by Castrol.

Edwards said: ” I lost Superpole in the first section. It was just a tiny slip, but I knew it had gone. There are so many turns here you’ll struggle to make it back. But, hey that’s racing and we’ll be right there tomorrow. ”

Edwards has also just confirmed he will ride for Ducati in 2003 alongside Hodgson.

1)N Hodgson 2)C Edwards 3)B Bostrom 4)R Xaus 5)N Haga 6)T Bayliss 7)PF Chili 8)J Toseland 9)G Lavilla 10)C Walker 11)S Martin 12)B Parkes 13)L Pedercini 14)M Borciani 15)A Antonello 16)JB Borja…21)M Heckles