After completing the two-day test on Tuesday and Wednesday with some satisfaction, the Honda HRC team set the pace in Friday's Qualifying for the Suzuka 8 Hours, leading the way with an average of 2’04”738. The ranking is established by calculating the average performance of the two best riders from each team, and significantly contributing to HRC's top position was a benchmark of 2’04”422 set by Jonathan Rea. This is a strong showing ahead of tomorrow's Top 10 Trial for the trio completed by Takumi Takahashi and Somkiat Chantra, aiming for Honda's fifth consecutive victory in the famous endurance race.
The closest challenger to the Honda #30 is the M 1000 RR #37 of the BMW Motorrad World Endurance Team. The team of Markus Reiterberger, Steven Odendaal, and Michael van der Mark secured second place, just 75 thousandths off the top, largely thanks to the 2’04”485 lap time by the Dutch rider.
The Yamaha contingent lagged behind, with the Elf Marc VDS Racing Team/KM99, YART Yamaha Official EWC Team, and Yamaha Factory Racing Team completing the Top 5. The fastest among the riders from the Iwata-based manufacturer was Alessandro Del Bianco with a lap time of 2’04”960, propelling his teammates, Randy De Puniet and Florian Marino, to third place provisionally with an average time of 2’04”960.
Two tenths better than the average result from the two best performances of YART's riders Karel Hanika, Marvin Fritz, and Leandro Mercado, who managed fourth place despite some technical issues in the afternoon, narrowly beating the #21 R1 ridden by Katsuyuki Nakasuga, Jack Miller, and Andrea Locatelli, fifth, by 458 thousandths off the HRC's benchmark.
Sixth position for the F.C.C. TSR Honda France team, which completes the list of ten teams qualified for the Top 10 Trial, along with Astemo Pro Honda SI Racing, Yoshimura SERT Motul, AutoRace Ube Racing Team, and SDG Team HARC-PRO. Honda, where the pole position will be decided.
Team Etoile secures pole position in Superstock
As for the Superstock class, which awards pole position based on Qualifying times without a Top 10 Trial, the pole was claimed by the BMW Team Etoile with an average time of 2’06”209. The trio of Hikari Okubo, Motoharu Ito, and Kaito Toba outperformed the Honda of the NCXX RACING with RIDERS CLUB team, entrusted to Tetsuta Nagashima, Yudai Kamei, and Yut Date.
The Team TATARA Aprilia crew finished third, followed by the Kawasaki Plaza Racing Team and the Dafy-Kaedear-RAC41-Honda team, which includes Kevin Manfredi.
The standings
