The Australian powered his Ducati 998R Factory bike round the 4.005 km Ricardo Tormo Circuit in a time of 1m34.814s, knocking well over one second off the previous Superpole mark set by Troy Corser last year.

“I’ll definitely be first into the first corner tomorrow”, declared Bayliss. “There are a lot of excited riders around here looking forward to the first race so the only way to keep out of trouble is to get a good start. My Superpole lap was pretty good, I got a good rhythm through the corners and I knew I was really quick in the final part of the track. Valencia is a strange circuit because it changes a lot every time we come here so you simply have to adapt and change the bike around to suit it, but I’m very happy with the race set-up and my race tyre and I’m sure you’re going to see some good racing tomorrow.”

Ducati L&M rider Ben Bostrom will start alongside Bayliss on the front row of the grid after clocking a time of 1m34.959s in Superpole, just a tenth of a second slower than his fellow Ducati Corse rider. The American, who was fastest in the morning’s second and final qualifying session, slipped down one place on the grid after losing a little time in the one-lap afternoon dash.

“On my Superpole lap I was just a little bit too excited. I went really fast into the first two turns but then they all started coming in at me a bit too quickly and I pushed too hard”, declared Bostrom. “But overall we’re pretty happy with the way things have gone today. I set a time of 1’35.1 on my race tyre and the lap times came easy. We did a long run in the afternoon and the bike and tyres were working really well so I’m confident things will be OK for tomorrow. It’s the first race of the season and I can’t wait to get on the grid and get it out of the way, but the Valencia track is very hard to pass on and it tends to burn the tyres up on the left side, so you can be sure it’s going to be a long hard race”.

Colin Edwards, on the new SP-2 Castrol Honda, starts from third after the Texan made a mistake exiting the final corner of his Superpole lap.

"I was up on the split time but ran wide as I came onto the start and finish straight," reported Edwards. "I'm on the front row, we've got a good race set-up and I'm confident I can win tomorrow."

Noriyuki Haga on the factory Aprilia completes the front row for Sunday's two races of round one of the 13-round championship.  "The first row is very important for the two starts tomorrow," said Noriyuki Haga. "I'm very happy with the set-up of the bike and the free trials in the afternoon gave me an excellent idea of a couple of good solutions for the race tyres. This is good equipment and it makes me feel confident for tomorrow's races. I found a number of places on the track where I can get past the others if I'm not able to break ahead right from the start".

British Ducati privateer Neil Hodgson is at the head of row two in fifth place despite a crash in the earlier free practice session.

Spaniard Juan Borja starts from sixth on his Spaziotel team Ducati with Kawasaki's Hitoyasu Izutsu seventh and Lucio Pedercini eighth to complete the second row.

Mistakes on his Superpole lap left Ruben Xaus on row three as the spectacular Spaniard recorded the ninth best Superpole time.  “Pity about my Superpole lap, I got it a bit wrong going into a couple of corners, which made me lose time, so I’m a bit disappointed because I would like to have started from the front row of the grid in front of my home crowd. Tomorrow’s race is going to be tough but I can get up from row 3, it just depends how fast the race is going to be. There are five guys in there with a chance and I think I’m one of them, but I’ll just have to stay calm, not take any risks and keep out of trouble for the first few laps because it’s going to be a long race.”

Pier-Francesco Chili completes the top 10, who were all inside the existing lap record.  "Yesterday after the first day of practicing I was sure that today I would be able to stay with the fastest on my NCR Axo 998R Ducati," , - said Chili with a bitter smile - "But today my opinions have been twisted.. My machine started to suffer front and rear chatter without any explanation and I was not able to use the throttle as I would like to do. On one occasion as I was about to pass Walker in a corner, I had to brake very hard to avoid colliding with him, and lost grip. I had a wild moment as the machine went sideways, not due to late braking but due to the chattering. Of course I am unhappy not to be up with the leaders, but our pre-season planning was that we would need two or three races to be competitive."

Broc Parkes had an unpleasant surprise due to a fever attack during the night which did not allow him to sleep comfortably. Even so he was able to improve his lap time, but not sufficiently to make the Superpole.

"Today I had several difficulties with the handling of my NCR Parmalat 998R Ducati, but above all I am not well; last night I had a high fever and I did not take any medicine because I did not want to fall fowl of the antidoping tests. I will visit the Clinica Mobile staff to get something for tomorrow."

Final World Superbike qualifying times:

1. Troy Bayliss, Australia (Ducati) 1m 34.814s,
2. Ben Bostrom, USA (Ducati) 1m 34.959s,
3. Colin Edwards, USA (Castrol Honda) 1m 34.982s,
4. Noriyuki Haga, Japan (Aprilia) 1m 35.015s,
5. Neil Hodgson, GB (Ducati) 1m 35.065s,
6. Juan Borja, Spain (Ducati) 1m 35.891s,
7. Hitoyasu Izutsu, Japan (Kawasaki) 1m 35.904s,
8. Lucio Pedercini, Italy (Ducati) 35.909s,
9. Ruben Xaus, Spain (Ducati) 1m 35.937s,
10. Pier-Francesco Chili, Italy (Ducati) 1m 35.948s,
11. Chris Walker, GB (Kawasaki) 1m36.589s,
12. Gregorio Lavilla, Spain (Suzuki) 1m36.767s,
13. James Toseland, GB (Ducati) 1m37.131s,
14. Steve Martin, Australia (Ducati) 1m37.373s,
15. Marco Borciani, Italy (Ducati) 1m37.521s,
16. Serafino Foti, Italy (Ducati) 1m37.749s,
17. Alessandro Antonello, (Ducati) 16.796s,
18. Broc Parkes, Australia (Ducati) 1m38.005s.