Bostrom was aiming to improve on his time of 1’29.773 but crashed in the final three minutes of qualifying, which had been restarted after an incident involving Pedercini. “I took my warm-up lap too slow, my Q-tyre was too cold and I crashed out at the first corner, but I’m OK”, said Bostrom. “I feel quite happy after today’s first session because the pace of the leaders is within reach. I’m sure I can match the time of Tamada but I also know that tomorrow he will go faster. After the last three races, I finally feel like I’m back racing again and the fact that I crashed but am still smiling shows it”.

Troy Bayliss (Ducati Infostrada) was delighted to be up in eighth place after recording his quickest ever time around the 3.737 km circuit in 1’29.773. “I know we can make the bike go a lot quicker tomorrow, but for the moment I’m pleased with the way things have gone today” declared Troy. “Tamada is fastest but I’m less than half-a-second behind in eighth and that’s the fastest I’ve ever gone around Sugo. Qualifying is going to be difficult but I’m looking forward to the race on Sunday. I don’t like being eighth, especially with Colin second, but I’m pretty sure he won’t go much quicker tomorrow. The bike is similar to Kyalami with a good baseline set-up but we’ll be making a few minor changes tomorrow to help with the comfort factor”.

Ruben Xaus (Ducati Infostrada) was also pleased with his time of 1’29.938, which earned him eleventh place on the provisional starting-grid, but was sure he could improve tomorrow after a problem with his Q-tyre. “Everything is OK and my lap times are quite good” commented Xaus. “I had a problem with my qualifying tyre, which didn’t have such good grip on one side and as a result I couldn’t do the four left-hand corners very well, which is really important here. However I’m only 6/10ths of a second away from Tamada and I did better with my race tyre than on qualifying rubber. For the moment things are much better than last year, when I didn’t even qualify for Superpole!”

1. Makoto Tamada - Honda - 1m29.314
2. Colin Edwards - Honda - 1m29.454
3. Noriyuki Haga - Aprilia - 1m29.495
4. Hitoyasu Izutsu - Kawasaki - 1m29.612
5. Neil Hodgson - Ducati - 1m29.690
6. Wataru Yoshikawa - Yamaha - 1m29.723
7. Ben Bostrom - Ducati - 1m29.773
8. Troy Bayliss - Ducati - 1m29.773
9. Akira Yanagawa - Kawasaki - 1m29.823
10. Yuichi Takeda - Honda - 1m29.909
11. Ruben Xaus - Ducati - 1m29.938
12. Gregorio Lavilla - Suzuki - 1m30.121
13. Chris Walker - Kawasaki - 1m30.155
14. Takeishi Tsujimura - Yamaha - 1m30.642
15. Juan Borja - Ducati - 1m30.903
16. Eric Bostrom - Kawasaki - 1m30.948
17. Marco Borciani - Ducati - 1m31.075
18. James Toseland - Ducati - 1m31.188
19. Lucio Pedercini - Ducati - 1m31.798
20. Kenichiro Nakamura - Honda - 1m31.830
21. Alessandro Antonello - Ducati - 1m32.032
22. Steve Martin - Ducati - 1m32.117
23. Ivan Clementi - Kawasaki - 1m32.205
24. Broc Parkes - Ducati - 1m32.346
25. Mark Heckles - Honda - 1m32.508
26. Mauro Sanchini - Kawasaki - 1m32.573