Pole for HRC for home EWC Suzuka 8 Hours

A delayed and revised Top 10 Trial for pole position for the third round of the FIM Endurance World Championship saw Tetsuta Nagashima post a 2m04.934 to take pole position on the #33 Team HRC CBR1000RR-RSP for tomorrow’s 43rd running of the Coca-Cola Suzua 8 Hours whilst YART lead the way for the EWC season-contenders. After mixed conditions affected running so far at Suzuka the single pole lap format was revised for an open 40-minute session for the two nominated riders from each team. For Team HRC, it was Nagashima first to push the Bridgestones, with the pole lap set on his first flying lap, which would prove to be unbeatable for the rest of the session.

“So I'm really happy to that we have achieved the pole position,” said Nagashima. “Unfortunately, we didn't have the top 10 trial today. But anyway, we're going to do it's very good to start from the pole opposition.

So tomorrow we're going to do a great job. Next fastest was another Suzuka-only effort with the #10 Kawasaki Racing Team Suzuka 8H ZX-10R and Jonathan Rea making amends for his FP2 off to set a 2m05.149s late on in the session. “I was very happy with the lap time,” said Rea.

“I got caught out a little bit this morning with the Bridgestone tyre as it's the first time I've ever used their soft tyre. We’ve been working with the race tyre and I underestimated how much grip the soft has in change of direction. “I really support the race directors when they changed the Top 10 Trial format because so many riders hadn't completed one chrono lap, so for me to go into super pole and set one lap would have been very strange.