MS Aprilia rookie Shane Byrne underlined his growing MotoGP potential this afternoon as the critical European phase of the 2004 season got underway at a cool and blustery Jerez.

The Brit ended first qualifying for Sunday's Spanish GP in 16th position, the 27-year-old showinꦗg the RS3 Cube's potential when he was placed ✃ninth with just five minutes of the hour-long session remaining.

The British superbike champion knocked a massive 2.6secs off his best time set in this morning's free practice session, proving he's also adapting to the super-soft Michelin qualifying tyres which bꦅecome a key factor in the decisive final minutes of qualifying. Today was only the fourth time 'Shakey' has used qualifiers and he ended with a best time of 1min 43.024.

"Got to be hap🧸py with that and I was really looking forward to coming here after testing the Aprilia here for the first time last year," explained Byrne. "At least I knew where I was going although the bike was too fast this morning but we changed the ignition this afternoon and it was much more rideable."

Team-mate Jeremy💎 McWilliams finished the session i𒁏n 19th position, the experienced Irishman also producing a huge improvement by almost three seconds from this morning's effort.

McWilliams set hiꦦs best time of 1.43.730 on hi✱s last lap, despite struggling with a chatter problem: "I had some problem with chatter so 19th position is pretty good. I'll be trying a different set-up in the morning to see if we can find a solution."