Xaus and Bayliss leave pack standing

It was an ominous start to the World Superbikes season yesterday, with the reigning champion Troy Bayliss and his team-mate Ruben Xaus realising their rivals' worst fears.

The Infostrada Ducati pair are the ones to beat and it looks as though it will be a tough campaign for the other teams. Xaus put his local knowledge to full use as he took provisional pole for tomorrow's opening round. The Spaniard continued his impressive testing form by clocking a time of 1min 34.927sec – more than half a second faster than last year's pole position time.

Bayliss was less than a 10th of a second behind in second, while Aprilia's Noriyuki Haga took third on the provisional grid ahead of today's final qualifying sessions.

The American Colin Edwards took his Castrol Honda to provisional fourth-quickest to complete the front row, while James Toseland, the 21-year-old Doncaster rider, clocked a fine seventh quickest, just ahead of Burnley's Neil Hodgson in eighth. Hodgson's afternoon was hampered by "chattering" problems at the front of his Ducati and his best lap was over a half a second off the pace.

Of the other British hopefuls, Chris Walker – starting the season despite suffering from Bell's palsy which has left half his face paralysed – registered the 14th quickest time, while Mark Heckles was down in 19th after a fall on his Honda limited him to only 10 laps.