Yamaha Motor Italia rider Noriyuki Haga bounced back to his best form to take second position on the grid for tomorrow's two 28-lap races at Silverstone in the United Kingdom.

Starting the superpole session fourth after ending regular qualifying in 13th place, Nitro Nori belied his wild man image to scorch to a super smooth lap time of 1:26.985, the fastest lap of the weekend at the time. It was a lap that was good enough to see off all but one of Haga's rivals. Ironically the only man to better Nori's time was his close friend Yukio Kagayama (Suzuki), who clocked a 1:26.679 to eclipse his fellow Japanese and deny him what would have been his second pole position in the class.

Haga's team-mate Andrew Pitt also had a productive day to claim ninth on the grid. The Australian had to dig deep after ending day one down in 23rd place, but characteristically he and his team worked hard to improve the set-up of the R1 and, combined with increased knowledge of the circuit, was able to end regular qualifying in 11th - a position he was able to further improve to ninth with a weekend best lap of 1:27.861 in superpole.

With this year's Silverstone races being held on the shorter International configuration (unlike the Grand Prix circuit used previously) both riders made maximum use of their track time to find optimum settings for the slow and bumpy circuit. Haga used a different specification swingarm in the afternoon session while Pitt made great strides with his suspension settings.

Joining Haga and Kagayama on the front row will be Regis Laconi (Ducati) and Troy Corser (Suzuki). Spaniard Jose Luis Cardoso set the sixth fastest time on his private R1, with young debutant Massimo Roccoli qualifying for superpole on his Lorenzini by Leoni Yamaha - the 21-year-old from Rimini setting the 16th fastest lap in his first attempt at the discipline.

Yamaha Motor France pairing Norick Abe and Sebastien Gimbert had a tough initiation to the British circuit. Abe qualified for superpole and improved one place to a 14th position grid slot while Gimbert starts 19th after missing out on the one-lap shootout after failing to improve his Friday time in the morning's windy second qualifying session.

Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia)
"I am very happy with the superpole result. My settings today were a little better than yesterday and I am also very happy because this is the best I have felt on the bike all year. Tomorrow morning we will try a few small things to improve the bike further but already the bike is very good and my decision has been made on tyre choice. Maybe I was a little disappointed to see Yuki-san go a little quicker than me but I think tomorrow we should be able to have a good fight and I am looking forward to the races very much - my only hope now is that the weather stays sunny and dry."

Andrew Pitt (Yamaha Motor Italia)
"I've got to be happy with the improvement we made today. Mostly it was a case of learning the circuit but yesterday we got a bit lost, improving the bike while I was trying to learn the circuit so for today we went back to a setting similar to what we used in Valencia and it works a lot better. There's still a bit of a question mark over which rear tyre to use, but otherwise I'm happy with our set-up for the race."

Massimo Meregalli (Team Coordinator - Yamaha Motor Italia) "Finally everything worked well today and all the hard work we are doing now seems to be paying off. I am very happy to see Noriyuki at the front today. This is the Noriyuki that the fans love. Also the big improvement from Andrew is positive for both him and team and I am now very curious to see the races go tomorrow. My hope for tomorrow is that the weather is dry. I looked at three forecasts and all were different, but I think a dry race will be very spectacular and better for both the spectators and riders."

Norick Abe (Yamaha Motor France)
"Not so bad. We have quite a good race set-up for tomorrow and will try a few more things in the warm-up to try to make some more improvements. The times are all very close in qualifying so if I can make a good start I think I can ride with the leading group."

Supersport

Yamaha Motor Germany rider Kevin Curtain will start tomorrow's fifth round of the Supersport World Championship from second on the grid after an exciting qualifying session that saw the Australian narrowly pipped to pole position by championship leader Sebastien Charpentier (Honda) in the 45-minute session.

Curtain cut over a second from his best time in Friday's opening session early in the session to take provisional pole with a lap time of 1:28.792, before concentrating on developing his race setting and banging in an ultra consistent sequence of eight laps in the 1:30 bracket.

Charpentier and Curtain were the only riders able to break the 1:29 barrier, although in the end the Frenchman denied Curtain the pole by just 0.042 seconds. However, the 39-year-old Curtain goes into tomorrow's race in an upbeat mood after finding good settings for tomorrow's 28-lap race.

Team-mate Broc Parkes will start from the second row of the grid after setting the seventh fastest lap of timed practice. Like Curtain, the 23-year-old goes into tomorrow's race with a positive attitude after finding a good race set-up on his YZF-R6. Parkes too was able to string together an impressive sequence of 1:30 laps in what is just his fifth race on the Yamaha, which has shown its liking for the British circuit with two wins in the past two seasons.

Joining Charpentier and Curtain on the front row will be young British wild-card Craig Jones (Honda) and Italian Gianluca Nannelli (Ducati).

Kevin Curtain - "I'm happy with second although I actually missed a gear on my fastest lap and that cost me around two-tenths of a second. The front row is important but 28 laps is going to make it a long hard race tomorrow. Again we set a target for Charpentier to shoot at and he's come out and pushed a bit harder to beat us. But I think we have a very good set-up and I was able to a lot of quick laps in practice, but we'll just have to wait and see how the race goes."

Broc Parkes - "We've made some big progress this weekend and this is the happiest I've felt with the bike all weekend. I'm a little disappointed not to be a bit higher on the grid but I'm able to run a good consistent pace which is more important than one fast lap in qualifying."