In the opening day of Round 7 Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) managed to steal the show by placing himself on top in Qualifying 1 after the 1st place achieved in late morning’s free practice. Last year’s runner up set a 1’47.218 seconds lap-time in his penultimate attempt to edge a competitive Jonathan Rea (Pata Honda World Superbike), who did a good job to close up on the lead in the final stages.

The national flag for the round was well represented today, as Michel Fabrizio (Red Devils Aprilia) ended up third ahead of fellow Italian riders Ayrton Badovini (Team Ducati Alstare), who achieved his best finish in qualifying so far in 2013, Davide Giugliano (Althea Racing Aprilia) and Marco Melandri (BMW Motorrad GoldBet), all within 0.259 seconds of each other.

Championship leader Sylvain Guintoli (Aprilia Racing Team) completed the session in 7th place, followed by Leon Camier (FIXI Crescent Suzuki), team mate Eugene Laverty and Loris Baz (Kawasaki Racing Team), who had a spectacular crash at Turn 6 that led to a quick Red Flag halfway through the session. The young Frenchman walked away from the run-off area uninjured. Returning Noriyuki Haga (Grillini Dentalmatic BMW) had a difficult debut day of his one-event participation, as he finished 17th ahead of team mate Vittorio Iannuzzo.