FUJIWARA MISSES POLE BY A WHISKER Katsuaki Fujiwara had to concede pole position for tomorrow’s sixth round World Supersport championship race at Misano, Italy to fellow Honda rider, Fabien Foret, this afternoon; the Frenchman beat his Japanese rival to the coveted spot by just .019s. Fujiwara’s Winston Ten Kate Honda team-mate, Sébastien Charpentier, saw his string of consecutive pole positions come to an end as he had to settle for third place on the grid for tomorrow’s 23-lap race around the 4.060km Misano circuit. Charpentier has taken pole position at the first five rounds of this year’s championship. Ronald ten Kate team manager: “The one sure thing about a string of results is that it has to come to an end sometime and that’s what happened with pole position this afternoon. It’s good to know that we fought hard to keep it going though, and at least it has gone to another Honda rider. Sebastien recovered well from his crash this morning and I’m very pleased with the way that Katsuaki has gone about making steady improvements yesterday and today. Both our riders are on the front row and happy with their race set-ups. We’ll spend some time confirming tyre choice tomorrow morning and hopefully be able to continue our string of race wins.” Katsuaki Fujiwara second fastest, 1m37.639s “I’m really happy with the set-up we have here and we’re pretty sure which tyres we’re going to use. We will check that in the morning during warm-up but we’re ready to race. It was very hot out there this afternoon, with the track temperature again very high. I think it might be even hotter tomorrow so 23 laps will be very hard work around here. But I like Misano and I’ve enjoyed being on the podium here before. Tomorrow I want to be on the top step.” Sébastien Charpentier third fastest, 1m37.959s “It’s OK I guess but I’ve become used to pole position and I like it. The crash this morning was nothing really near the end of a lap when I was coming in anyway. But I’m happy that we’ve continued to make progress with the set-up and the only problem we have is the lack of grip. The hot weather does not help and it is the same for everyone. Misano is certainly not my favourite track those are still to come so I’ll do my best here tomorrow and try to stay in a good position in the championship.” World Supersport, Misano final qualifying times: 1 Fabien Foret FRA (Honda) 1m37.620s, 2 Katsuaki Fujiwara JPN (Winston Ten Kate Honda) 1:37.639, 3 Sébastien Charpentier FRA (Winston Ten Kate Honda) 1:37.959, 4 Kevin Curtain AUS (Yamaha) 1:38.118, 5 Michel Fabrizio ITA (Honda) 1:38.215, 6 Gianluca Nannelli ITA (Ducati) 1m38.226, 7 Broc Parkes AUS (Yamaha) 1:38.470, 8 Simone Sanna ITA (Honda) 1:38.514, 9 Cristiano Migliatori ITA (Kawasaki) 1:38.661, 10 Javier Fores ESP (Suzuki) 1:38.814…30. Chris Peris CAN (Suzuki), 1:41.433.