Source: BSB.

Josh Brookes claimed his first pole position of the 2015 MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship season in style at Oulton Park on Sunday, lapping under his own circuit record to out-gun Tommy Bridewell to the top spot by just 0.014 seconds.

The pole position marked the first in MCE BSB for the new Milwaukee Yamaha YZF-R1 and Brookes held off the late challenges from both Bridewell, who scored Tyco BMW their first front row start of the season, and Stuart Easton on the PBM Kawasaki.

“I am really pleased to get my first pole position of the season,” Brookes explained. “It is always something you want to achieve and it is a nice feather in the cap. It felt like quite a clean lap in Q3, so I was happy considering the conditions were changing.

“These guys are all so close – it was point nothing in it and it is obviously going to be really close in the races too as all of us on the front row can do the lap times. Shakey and Kiyo won’t just disappear, so it is going to be as I predicted, a good few of us in for the battle.”

Easton had saved his best lap until the final minute of Q3, which pushed triple champion Ryuichi Kiyonari back onto the third row for the Buildbase BMW team.

Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne set the fifth best time of the session on the second PBM Kawasaki as he bids to increase his six point advantage over JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s James Ellison who has won three of the four races so far and qualified in sixth place.

Jason O’Halloran had a huge moment on his fast lap, almost crashing the Honda Racing Fireblade, but managed to save it and hold seventh on the time sheets to head the third row ahead of Tyco BMW’s Michael Laverty. Danny Buchan riding the Be Wiser Kawasaki and Billy McConnell completes top 10 qualifiers on the Smiths BMW.

Of the remaining Australians, Brookes’ teammate Broc Parkes qualified in 16th position, with Josh Waters two positions further back in 18th on his Bennetts Suzuki.

Click here for detailed results