Jonathan Rea will start tomorrow’s two 10th round World Superbike championship races from the front row of the grid after setting the second fastest time in this afternoon’s Superpole qualifying session.

“It’s really fun to ride here and tomorrow should deliver two fantastic races – there are so many good passing places. I want to thank all my fans and sponsors for coming out for my home race and I’ll certainly ride with a smile on my face tomorrow. The last two weeks have been a little crazy but it’s great to start the weekend at Silverstone like this. It’s the front row, and you can’t ask for much more than to start a race from there,” said Rea.

Pole position was taken by fellow British rider, Cal Crutchlow, after Rea had topped the timing sheets in this morning’s second qualifying session when the 5.902km Silverstone circuit was still damp in patches following overnight rain.

“It was a great time by Cal and it was too fast for me today, but I’m enjoying riding the bike, it’s a lot of fun, and I think the 18 laps are going to go quite fast compared to my Suzuka adventure last weekend. So I’ll need to pull the pin quite early on and see what happens, but the bike’s good, the team’s good and track is awesome – you can’t help but smile when you’re riding round here,” said Rea.

The new Silverstone layout has received an enthusiastic thumbs up from Rea and his World Superbike rivals, despite changes in track surface and its bumpy nature. He and Crutchlow are joined on the front row by Michel Fabrizio and Jakub Smrz.

Rea’s Hannspree Ten Kate Honda team-mate Max Neukircher was unable to improve the set-up of his CBR1000RR Fireblade in this morning’s damp conditions. The German qualified for Superpole thanks to his time from yesterday’s session but he was unable to progress beyond Superpole 1 and will start tomorrow’s two 18-lap races from 18th place on the grid.

“The problem is that I can’t keep the line in the corners and I don’t have any grip at the rear. It was bad yesterday but today it is even worse. We’ll try to make the bike completely different for tomorrow, like we had in the Assen test and working mostly on the rear, and we will see what happens,” said Neukircher.

“We’re happy to have Jonathan on the front row of the grid – that was the mission for him today. He seems to have already found quite a good pace for the race and that’s what tomorrow is all about. We’re still looking at a few things on the bike but we’re ready to race with the top guys being fairly close to each other on race tyres. With this new track layout, I think the races are going to be very nice to watch,” said team manager Ronald ten Kate.

2010 World Superbike championship – round 10
Silverstone, United Kingdom (5.902km) – final qualifying results:
1. Cal Crutchlow (GBR) Yamaha 2’04.091s
2. Jonathan Rea (GBR) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda 2’04.763s
3. Michel Fabrizio (ITA) Ducati 2’05.083s
4. Jakub Smrz (CZE) Aprilia 2’05.168s
17. Max Neukirchner (GER) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda 2’07.041s