With rain falling during this morning's final qualifying session, defending World Superbike Champion Troy Bayliss along with everyone else was unable to improve on their lap times set during Friday's opening qualifying session. All attention was then drawn to the afternoon's grid position determining Superpole, which was fortunately held in dry conditions.

On his Superpole lap Bayliss was able to improve on his previous best time to record a 1-min 48.415-sec around the famous 5.793km Italian circuit. His time however was eclipsed first by Castrol Honda's Colin Edwards (1:48.413) and finally by Neil Hodgson (HM Plant Ducati) who smashed the lap record to grab pole position for the event with a stunning time of 1:47.913. Hodgson's time was a full second under Edwards' existing Superbike lap record set at last year's event.

"My Superpole lap was OK but it wasn't perfect," said Bayliss. "I ran a bit wide at the Ascari bends, plus I don't think that I was as aggressive as I could have been. Both Neil (Hodgson) and Colin (Edwards) have been on the pace all weekend, so I'm not too surprised by the times, but it would have been nice to have been on pole, but it is still good to be on the front row of the grid anyway. Because of the high speeds around Monza we have had to switch from a front tyre that I would normally use to another type due to the heat that is generated. I think a few of the other guys have had a similar problem, it's a case f different tyres suiting different tracks I guess."

"The weather has made things very difficult around here that's for sure," Bayliss added. "The track dries quickly which is good and with the mixture of wet and dry sessions that we've had, we have been able to set the bike up well to cope with either condition."

"As for the race tomorrow I expect them to be tough as usual. There could be about six or so different guys in the lead group, so the plan will be to stay with them and keep out of trouble in the first eight laps or so and see what happens from there. I did a lot of laps on the race tyre that we will likely use tomorrow, so I'm confident that we will have a good package for the race."

Completing the front row of the grid for tomorrow's two 18-lap World Superbike races is local favourite and four times SWC race winner at Monza, Pierfrancesco Chili. The NCR Ducati rider posted a time of 1:48.662 in what is his comeback ride after missing the last two rounds of the championship with a broken collarbone.

Row two will be headed by Japan's Noriyuki Haga (Playstation2 Aprilia) who was the big improver in the session, moving from eleventh to fifth on the grid after setting a time of 1:49.206. Joining Haga on row two are James Toseland (HM Plant Ducati, 1:49.541), Lucio Pedercini (Pedercini Ducati, 1:49.800) and Eric Bostrom (Fuchs Kawasaki, 1:50.009). Australian Steve Martin (DFX Ducati, 1:50.035) was ninth and will head row three one place ahead of Ben Bostrom (L&M Ducati, 1:50.091) who rounds out the top ten.