Gradinger takes maiden World Supersport pole

Full WorldSSP Superpole qualifying results

Thomas Gradinger has converted his impressive practice pace to take a first-ever pole position in the World Supersport championship ahead of Federico Caricasulo.

The Austrian rider notched up a 1m 53.972s at the start of his final run to set the time to beat and despite improvements from Caricasulo he kept pole by 0.119s from the Bardahl Evan Bros Yamaha rider.

Caricasulo’s team-mate Randy Krummenacher will also line up on the front row having edged out joint-championship leader Jules Cluzel in fourth place with the GMT94 Yamaha held up by traffic from rival riders on his final qualifying run.

Isaac Vinales claimed his best qualifying result of his rookie World Supersport campaign with fifth place for Kallio Racing Yamaha, 0.420s off pole-sitter team-mate Gradinger, with MV Agusta’s Raffaele De Rosa completing row two.

Lucas Mahias leads the Puccetti Kawasaki charge in seventh place ahead of Corentin Perolari, who suffered a late off for GMT94 Yamaha, with Hikari Okubo completing row three.

Hannes Soomer heads up row four on the Racedays Honda ahead of Ayrton Badovini (Pedercini Kawasaki) with Hector Barbera relegated to 12^th place for Team Toth Yamaha after being shown the black flag for failing to pit after a crash.