Silverstone BSB: Lowes takes pole number seven

Alex Lowes continued his qualifying domination of the MCE British Superbike Championship, taking his seventh pole of the season to take his second pole in a row on the Samsung Honda.

The Lincolnshire rider was able to easily control all three sessions, as he took the number one spot by over half a second from an injured Shane Byrne.

However, Lowes says that there’s still work to be done with his bike before tomorrow’s race that will allow him to push even faster.

“It would have been nice if one of today’s laps was quicker than last year! The bike wasn’t too good this morning, with a couple of problems. With it raining yesterday I sort of went into panic mode, and we ran out of time at the end. But we made changes for today and it was starting to work well.”

“I only feel about 90% comfortable on the bike at the minute, and it would be nice to race at 95%, but we’ll be alright.”

Talking about main rival Byrne’s injuries after a fast crash in free practice, Lowes was quick to point out that he’d much rather beat Byrne man-to-man: “t would be nice if Shaky was fit, but I’m pretty sure he’s still going to come out fighting tomorrow. The last two rounds are still going to be close, although hopefully not as close as Assen!”

American rookie PJ Jacobsen was third, ahead of teammate Josh Brookes in fourth. James Ellison, the fourth of the championship contenders finished the session back in 18th after a Q2 crash left him unable to score a fast lap.