Zoom Mika Kallio

The quickest rider in this year´s 250cc testing visits to the Circuito de Jerez, Red Bull KTM´s Mika Kallio put himself on provisional pole for Sunday´s Gran Premio bwin.com de España with a 1'43.111 lap of the Spanish track.

Kallio´s time was recorded on his eighteenth lap of the afternoon session, putting the Finn ahead of the morning´s fastest rider, Lotus Aprilia returnee Alex Debon by two tenths of a second.

Debon was the only Aprilia representative to place on the provisional front row, dominated by KTM with further representation from home rider Julian Simon and Kallio´s team-mate, Hiroshi Aoyama.

Emmi-Caffe Latte rider Thomas Luthi is pencilled in to head the second row, joined by Mapfre Aspar´s crowd favourite Alvaro Bautista, 250cc newcomer Lukas Pesek and Pepe Team Toth´s Hector Barbera.

Winner of the opening Grand Prix of the season, Mattia Pasini had a slow start to his Jerez visit. The Polaris World Aprilia rider was over a second down on Kallio´s lap time to finish ninth, with the top ten completed by Yuki Takahashi.

There were crashes for, amongst others, Marco Simoncelli and Karel Abraham over the course of a frantic 250cc session. Simoncelli also jostled elbows with Kallio in the early going.

DORNA / CAPSIS International