Neil Hodgson (HM Plant Ducati) scored an excellent second place on the Superpole time sheets, and may have taken pole himself had he not experienced a severe rear wheel slide on the exit of turn three, losing vital forward motion.

Despite the cumulative effects of earlier crashes, Troy Bayliss (Ducati Infostrada) braved his back pain to score a third place on the grid. His suffering was such that he missed the Superpole front row press conference to attend the Clinica Mobile for treatment.

An excellent charging ride from Noriyuki Haga (Playstation2 Aprilia) put the other Italian factory on the front row.

A similar feat of riding skill, this time on a four-cylinder machine, gave Eric Bostrom a fifth place start, the first man on the second row and the first four-cylinder rider in the classification.

His countryman, and top ‘pure’ wild card rider, was Aaron Yates (Blimpie Yoshimura Suzuki) in sixth, while Ruben Xaus (Ducati Infostrada) scored a good seventh, finding some pace after a difficult weekend thus far.

Two riders crashed out of the Superpole session itself, one being Ben Bostrom (L&M Ducati) who fell in strange circumstances. Bostrom felt that he crashed on oil or dirt but some trackside witnesses speculated that he might even have fallen on another rider’s tear off visor. Due to his front row qualifying performance before Superpole he was only relegated to the last place on row two.

James Toseland scored ninth place on his HM Plant private Ducati, one place ahead of regular qualifying faller Mat Mladin (Blimpie Yoshimura Suzuki).

Nicky Hayden (Honda), another wild card, had a difficult Superpole, scoring 11th place after a good regulation qualifying performance.
Pierfrancesco Chili went 12th after a subdued ride in Superpole, one place ahead of local Ducati runner Doug Chandler and regular private DFX Ducati man Steve Martin.

Lucio Pedercini was an early crasher on his self-entered Ducati, losing the front inexplicably at turn five.

Gregorio Lavilla (Alstare Suzuki) is almost certain to start the races, although he did not start Superpole after suffering a painful crash in the final un-timed qualifying session. His failure to set a time puts him on the last place on the fourth row.
 

1. Colin Edwards 1m24.888
2. Neil Hodgson 1m25.189
3. Troy Bayliss 1m25.301
4. Noriyuki Haga 1m25.429
5. Eric Bostrom 1m25.688
6. Aaron Yates 1m26.081
7. Ruben Xaus 1m26.091
8. Ben Bostrom
9. James Toseland 1m26.129
10. Mat Mladin 1m26.134
11. Nicky Hayden 1m26.268
12. Pierfrancesco Chili 1m26.375
13. Doug Chandler 1m26.406
14. Steve Martin 1m26.695
15. Lucio Pedercini
16. Gregorio Lavilla
17. Chris Walker
18. Miguel Duhamel
19. Marco Borciani
20. Peter Goddard
21. Broc Parkes
22. Mauro Sanchini
23. Anthony Gobert
24. Ivan Clementi
25. Serafino Foti
26. Alessandro Antonello
27. Mark Heckles
28. Bertrand Stey
29. Mark Miller
30. Jiri Mrkyvka