Two other riders did however beat the previous best qualifying time of 1’47”293, the Yamaha Belgarda pairing of Paolo Casoli and James Whitham, scoring second and third fastest overall.

World Champion Andrew Pitt, still recovering from his recent bout of stomach problems, took the final provisional front row qualifying position on his Kawasaki.

Chris Vermeulen, Pitt’s compatriot took his Van Zon Honda to fifth fastest time, making it four different manufacturers in the top five places. Vermeulen’s performance was once again impressive, after his brilliant rides in Valencia, proving that Supersport is not exclusively a domain ruled by the more experienced riders.

Christian Kellner left it late to push his Yamaha Germany machine to the top six, the last rider within a second of Chambon’s time.

A great lap from the young English rider James Ellison saw him seventh fastest out of 30 possible qualifiers, and just ahead of former World Champion Jörg Teuchert.

The top placed local rider proved to be Trevor Crookes, who rode his UUNET Ducati to a fine ninth place. Another Ducati rider, Piergiorgio Bontempi, was tenth on his NCR machine.

1. Chambon - 1m46.647
2. Casoli - 1m46.943
3. Whitham - 1m47.277
4. Pitt - 1m47.296
5. Vermeulen - 1m47.530
6. Kellner - 1m47.577
7. Ellison - 1m47.823
8. Teuchert - 1m47.985
9. Crookes - 1m47.991
10. Bontempi - 1m47.998
11. Dreyer - 1m48.014
12. Daemen - 1m48.198
13. Foret - 1m48.340
14. MacPherson - 1m48.505
15. Fujiwara - 1m48.648
16. Carlacci - 1m48.756
17. Muggeridge - 1m48.900
18. Ulm - 1m48.910
19. Corradi - 1m49.026
20. Curtain - 1m49.236
21. Haarhoff - 1m49.281
22. Breda - 1m49.345
23. Cruciani - 1m49.371
24. MacLeod - 1m49.519
25. Cogan - 1m49.728
26. Nannelli - 1m49.836
27. Moodley - 1m50.310
28. Frost - 1m50.474
29. Giugovaz - 1m51.545
30. McGuinness - 1m53.240