John Hopkins' impressive wildcard entry at Silverstone continues. The Samsung Crescent Suzuki rider put in a final fast lap to edge current championship leader Carlos Checa from the provisional pole during the second qualifying session on Saturday morning, despite both Hopkins and Checa getting under Cal Crutchlow's race lap record from last year. Sitting in 2nd, Checa leads a trio of Ducatis: behind the Althea bike of the Spaniard is the Effenbert Liberty Ducati of Sylvain Guintoli and the Supersonic Ducati of Maxime Berger.
Marco Melandri's squad found a big improvement overnight, suddenly putting the factory Yamaha rider back into contention, Melandri moving up to 5th fastest and half a second off the pace of Hopkins, and just ahead of Alstare Suzuki's Michel Fabrizio and BMW's Leon Haslam. The other championship contender, Max Biaggi, fared much less well, only managing the 16th fastest time during QP2, leaving him 15th on the provisional grid. But Biaggi is still within a second of Hopkins' time, and so there is still hope for his final grid position, to be set in Superpole this afternoon.
Combined results from QP1 and QP2:
Francois Cevert Eugene Chaboud Jay Chamberlain Karun Chandhok Alain de Changy Colin Chapman Dave Charlton
