The weather conditions have proven to be difficult for all of the competitors with rain affecting every session held at the 5.094km circuit. The changeable weather conditions forced officials to declare the afternoon's 'Superpole' wet, which then gave the top sixteen SWC competitors a total of 12 laps to complete in the 50-minute session, with their fastest times then deciding their final grid starting positions.

With just under ten minutes remaining in the session, Bayliss was pushed back to third, firstly by Colin Edwards (Castrol Honda) and then by local, Steve Hislop (Monstermob Ducati), both of whom used their full allocation of 12 laps. The World Champion responded in style, by reeling off a sizzling 1-min 47.729-sec lap in the final minutes aboard his Infostrada Ducati 998F-02 to score his second pole position for the season.

"Being a wet Superpole, we had to plan our strategy well before the start of it and thing's were looking good for most of the session," said Bayliss. "I was on top of the leader board, but with about 3 minutes remaining Colin (Edwards) put in a faster lap. I wasn't planning on going back out, but after seeing the time, we made the decision to do so. I only had a soft race tyre on the back rather than the softer qualifying tyres we would normally use, but the main thing that I did notice was that the wind had dropped dramatically. I was able to just beat Colin's time which was good. It's been a while since I've been on pole (round one at Valencia), but it's good to know that we can do the times."

After edging out Bayliss at the end of regulation qualifying, Edwards took second position on the grid with a 1:47.883, followed by Hislop's 1:47.902. Japan's Noriyuki Haga (Playstation 2 FGF Aprilia) claimed the fourth and final front row spot with a time of 1:48.561.

Row two is headed by Michael Rutter (Renegade Ducati, 1:48.567) followed by Italian Pierfrancesco Chili (NCR Ducati, 1:49.001), Ruben Xaus (Infostrada Ducati, 1:49.108) and Neil Hodgson (HM Plant Ducati, 1:49.127). Lucio Pedercini (Pedercini Ducati, 1:49.523) and Shane Byrne (Renegade Ducati, 1:49.629) rounded out the top ten.

Bayliss heads into tomorrow's two 20-lap races holding a 38-point lead over Edwards with five of the scheduled thirteen rounds of this year's championship completed. The defending champion has had a sensational start to the year, winning eight of the ten races held so far and will be searching to extend that number in front of a strong following of fans who saw the Australian take the British Superbike title win in 1999.

"As usual, tomorrow's races will be hard and I expect Colin (Edwards) to be there all of the way," added Bayliss. "We have a good set up for the dry, but if it rains, it could throw the spanner in the works. We have had the chance to try a few things in the wet and am confident that we have a package that would suit those conditions as well. The hardest thing here is that the track dries so quickly once the rain has stopped. We have set the bike up so that we can make some minor and quick changes to the suspension to suit the wet, but then it may come down to tyre choice. The weather today was slightly better than Friday, so all we can hope for is that it keeps improving for tomorrow."