Kyalami WSB: Rea and Haslam on provisional front row

Brits Jonathan Rea and Leon Haslam both made impressive starts to their race weekend in Kyalami by securing a place on the provisional front row in the opening qualifying session.

Rea, who had a successful test at the South African circuit last December has clearly got his Ten Kate Honda dialled in and using a soft tyre showed both his pace and consistency to finish in second place behind the in form Ducati rider Michel Fabrizio..

Speaking to MCN he said:

“It’s a good start. I put a tyre on towards the end and set my fastest lap and was also able to be pretty consistent on it as well. I’m using a new STM slipper clutch although we still need to work on this a bit because the bikes is still backing in a little bit. We changed the bike during the session and fitted softer front fork springs and raised the height of the rear and this along with the changes to the engine we made after Valencia made the bike easy to get through the twisty parts of the track.”

Haslam showed that he is back on the pace after a tough Monza round last weekend. The 25 year old finished the day fourth onboard his Stiggy Honda CBR1000RR.

He said:

“I’m fast through the first split but I’m losing almost half a second to Fabrizio in the third sector. There is definitely more to come and I’ve been doing good times on the medium compound tyre which we know will easily last the race. I did 18 laps on a tyre and my last lap was a 1m 39.2s which is pretty encouraging.

Tom Sykes had a good day finishing in eighth one spot in front of factory Aprilia man Max Biaggi with Shane Byrne 14th and Tommy Hill in 21st.

Second qualifying begins at 10.45am local time Saturday 16th May.