Yamaha Motor Italia's Noriyuki Haga put in one of his best qualifying performances as an R1 rider to take seventh place on the provisional grid for Sunday's fifth round of the Superbike World Championship at Silverstone.

The Japanese ace was consistently in the top 10 during both the day's practice sessions in his first outing around the short International configuration circuit at Silverstone, a layout Haga described as "good, quite funny." In his fifth race with the YZF-R1, Haga admitted he is starting to get the machine set up more to his liking and with a good base setting already found in today's two one-hour session, the Yamaha Motor Italia team will try a few small suspension modifications tomorrow in a bid to further improve the package.

Haga's team-mate Andrew Pitt meanwhile had a day of woe in Silverstone, ending the first qualifying session in an uncharacteristically low 23rd place after failing to find a good set-up on his R1. The Australian lacked confidence in his machine and was unable to push hard into the many slow and bumpy corners at the British circuit, ending the day two seconds off pole position with a best of 1:29.638.

Superbike rookie Massimo Roccoli headed the gaggle of Yamaha riders occupying places 13 to 17. The Rimini youngster, standing in for the injured Gianluca Vizziello, was one of the revelations of the day as he held of a number of experienced R1 riders, including Yamaha Motor France's Sebastien Gimbert and Norick Abe - 15th and 17th respectively on their Silverstone debuts.

Ducati's Regis Laconi was the fastest man in today's first session with a lap time of 1:27.578, just marginally quicker than his team-mate James Toseland. Suzuki riders Troy Corser and Yukio Kagayama round out the provisional front row.

Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia) - "Not so bad, probably the best all year actually. The feeling with the bike is quite good and I still have some more settings to test tomorrow which we hope will make the bike more easy to ride. Today I was able to get into the 1:28s but I felt that I was pushing it quite hard. If the changes we make work then we should have a good set-up for the race."

Andrew Pitt (Yamaha Motor Italia) - "It's been really tough today as I've just not been able to get the bike set up how I want it. The problem is that I cannot get the bike stable under braking and around this short track here there are so many corners where this is crucial. I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of the short circuit - I much preferred to ride the Grand Prix circuit - but we just have to get on with it. We've been in this position before. I was 24th on the first day in Valencia and improved to the second row after superpole, so we've got to keep focused to work on a solution for tomorrow."

Massimo Meregalli (Yamaha Motor Italia Team Coordinator) - "I'm happy with Nori's performances today, especially on race tyres where the gap very close. He is also happy and I think that we can make some more improvements tomorrow. For Andrew it is a tough day and it looks like a lot of the changes we made were perhaps not the right ones. But we have had a meeting to discuss the best way forward and now we must sleep on things and hope that we are going in the correct direction. Andrew has proved before how mentally strong he is and I am sure he will have a positive attitude tomorrow."

Sebastien Gimbert (Yamaha Motor France) - "It's my first visit to Silverstone so I am learning the track and find a good set-up. We can make more progress and push a little harder tomorrow. The first target is to qualify for superpole so tomorrow we will see what happens."

Norick Abe (Yamaha Motor France) - "Again this is a new circuit for me to learn and my position for today is similar to the first day in Monza. For sure we can make progress and we must make sure that we move in the right directions with the changes. If we do then I am confident we can improve and make the superpole."