Mladin, the 2000 Daytona 200 By Arai champion, turned a lap of 1 minute, 48.424 seconds, 118.203 mph and broke the Daytona 200 By Arai qualifying record of Anthony Gobert, which was 1:48.516 seconds, 118.102 mph set back in 1999 aboard a Ducati.

Filling out the front row were Gobert (Yamaha), Nicky Hayden (Honda) and Aaron Yates (Suzuki). Only the top-four positions in the Daytona 200 By Arai field were set on Thursday. The rest of the field will be determined in qualifying on Friday.

Mladin becomes the third Australian in a row to win the Daytona 200 By Arai pole, which delivers a Rolex to the winning rider. Troy Bayliss (2000) and Gobert (1999) were the previous Aussies to win the Daytona 200 By Arai pole.

The pole by Mladin was Suzuki’s first since 1989 in the Daytona 200 By Arai. It was Mladin’s 16th career AMA Superbike pole, which puts him third on the all-time list.

Anthony Gobert - “I knew that somebody would beat it (the track record). As it turned out, Mat only just got it. When Mat did that time, it put the pressure on a bit. Unfortunately we didn’t really beat Mat today. It’s a position that we weren’t really expecting to be in. It’s a good surprise for me and a confidence builder for the team. It’s just a shame that we didn’t have a tyre because I felt that we could have held the record. Tomorrow, we’re just going to concentrate on trying to find a race tyre. Tyres have put me out of a bunch of races here. I would like to at least finish a race and finish on the podium.”

Mat Mladin - “It was a good lap for us. We did OK. The last two years -- last year and this year -- we haven’t been able to get a full lap on a single compound qualifier (tyre). Things just come apart on the last banking there. It doesn’t matter how slow you go for the first lap out of the pits. They just seem to come apart. The dual compound qualifier are pretty good, but they’re not the same. They still spin off a little bit. It’s pretty hard to do a pole lap on a dual compound qualifier. It was good to get it (the pole). I fully expected Anthony to give it a run. I know he does a good job in that department. It worked out good for us in the first race for the new Suzuki 750. We’re looking forward to the race. We expected to get more (speed). Every one always expects to get more. These guys will tell you the same. It’s hard to get more out of a tyre that’s not actually round for the last part of a lap.”