Ruben Xaus (Ducati Infostrada) backed up his recent win at Oschersleben with another excellent qualifying performance at Assen, and the 23-year-old Spanish rider will line up alongside his Australian team-mate on the front row of the grid for tomorrow’s two races. Despite crashing out in the final chicane, Xaus qualified in the top 3 for the second time on the run.

“Qualifying this weekend was really hard because of the conditions”, said Xaus. “We had a lucky practice in nearly dry conditions. I hate it like this, because you need luck to get a good time. It’s always nice to have a pole but Troy did really good times today. I just put intermediate tyres on but did a mistake on the last corner on my last lap and fell off at the chicane. I will try to do my best race of the year and help Troy win this title. I have a good set-up in dry conditions and wet the same but the races will be like a lottery and we don’t know who will make the right choice of tyres. Like Troy I think I will just go for it tomorrow”.

Akira Yanagawa in third and Pier-Francesco Chili make up the front row of the grid for Sunday's two 16-lap races, expected to be held in similar, changing weather conditions.

Pierfrancesco Chili - 4th - "Today I think I was lucky. Lucky to go chose and go out when I did and set a reasonable lap. Today the conditions were terrible. Sometimes it was dry and sometimes it was wet and that is very hard. I prefer it was wet or dry, not half and half. Today it was possible to go flat out in the wet because it was sunny and you could see where you were going and how the track was. If it had been dull or raining hard and a lot of wheelspray, it would've been much harder. I 'm a bit happier today then yesterday. I had some things on mind and it was hard to concentrate, but today I decided to try and ride the bike and forget the outside stuff."

James Toseland continued his form around the Assen track by taking fifth place with Gregorio Lavilla sixth on the second of the Kawasakis.

Yanagawa - 5th - “I’m really happy at the moment and I’m sure it will get better. Compared to last year the bike is much better. After the Most (Czechoslovakia) test we found a set-up that suits my style of riding. Now I apply all the power to the back wheel and still have enough confidence that I can push the front into corners even harder.”

Lavilla - 6th - “We are still making progress at the moment, but it feels much better to be in the top ten on the first day than the top twenty. We are still working on our race set-up but if it continues to rain at least we have a time that will put us into Superpole.”

Troy Corser took the seventh best time after opting to sit out the first 20 minutes of the session.

Corser - "Conditions today were pretty hard really - they always are when you get periods of wet and dry! This track dries out pretty fast and the grip is pretty good in the wet. But when there's lots of water on the track you could aquaplane without too much problem. We set one bike up for a dry race and the other one for a wet race and I'm pretty happy generally with the bike and the set-up. I had a few tyre problems today, but nothing drastic. If tomorrow is like today, you might end not using slicks or wets, and maybe intermediates. We'll have to see how it all looks in the morning and maybe try something in the morning warm-up before making our final choice."

Reigning champion Colin Edwards will start from eighth after the Texan gambled with the indifferent conditions.

"I was out there on the wrong tyres at the wrong time," said Edwards. "I went for full wet weather tyres but by the time I came back into the pits the circuit was dry enough for intermediate treaded tyres - then it started raining as I went back out."

Edwards' team-mate Tady Okada finished the day in ninth place despite a morning crash at the chicane as rain fell and caught out the luckless Japanese rider. Regis Laconi took 10th on an Aprilia.

Ben Bostrom (Ducati L&M) will start tomorrow’s penultimate round of the World Superbike Championship from row 3 of the grid after losing out in the changeable conditions. The American was left down in eleventh position as it started to rain and he was unable to improve his grid position.

“We just mistimed things really, together with a lot of other riders, and I could have been first or last” commented Bostrom. “My dry set-up is pretty good, we could have done a bit better in the wet today but it’s going to be tough starting from the third row tomorrow”.

Stephane Chambon - 13th - "I think I probably missed out on a front row position by about four minutes! Basically, it was probably a case of being out on not the right time. I was second at one stage and then as the conditions changed yet again, I got overtaken by a bunch of riders. I 'm pretty happy with my Suzuki 's set-up - for wet or dry - and the only problem is a grip problem. I think the bike is good, but we just need to be able to get more grip. Conditions were quite difficult today, but I 'm probably one of the few riders who would be really happy with a mixed condition race!"

Plans by Australian motorcycle rider Peter Goddard to improve the performance of his Benelli Tornado at Assen today were disrupted by bad weather in the lead-up to tomorrow's 12th round of the World Superbike Championship in the Netherlands.

Rain during the second qualifying session prevented Goddard from fully evaluating suspension changes made to his three-cylinder machine. The 37-year-old was able to complete only 10 laps during the session.

Goddard will start tomorrow's two races on the fifth row of the grid after qualifying 20th with a quickest lap of 2-mins 7.145-secs around the 6km track. He set the time in yesterday's first qualifying session.

Peter Goddard - "It's freezing cold, and the weather keeps changing, which is making it hard finding the bike set-up we want. I wasn't happy with the rear suspension at Oschersleben, so we want to trying settings similar to what we ran back at Misano. I think this could improve the bike, but unfortunately the weather makes it difficult to string a lot of laps together in the dry, which we need to do. Hopefully conditions will be better for the warm-up tomorrow, but they say it's going to keep raining on and off. Our reliability has been good in the last few races, and the aim tomorrow is to try and finish in the points. We have a new team and a new bike, and the experience everyone is gaining under race conditions will help us long-term next season."