Yamaha’s official EWC team were back on a high after taking pole position for the final Endurance round this weekend, the 6 Hours of Most.
Niccolò Canepa, Marvin Fritz and Karel Hanika all set near-identical sub-1’33 laps to take the honours for YART, ahead of BMW Motorrad World Endurance Team and Yoshimura SERT Motul - the current championship leaders.
The factory Yamaha outfit have had a tough 2021 season, with a late crash at Estoril adding to their two retirements on French soil but are hoping to convert their lead on the gird into success come race day.
“Our third pole is nice,” Fritz said after qualifying. “It’s five points which is good for the championship, but at the end we were really, really unlucky this year.
For us this race, is just the win which is important, so we go all in. Of course we have to make a good start because overtaking is very difficult on the track, and the end there is just one team, which is also really fast. But I’m so happy to have two really fast teammates, we had the same lap time at the end and we can’t wait for the race tomorrow,” he concluded.
BMW start from second, without the assistance of Javier Forés after his Bol d’Or testing crash. Markus Reiterberger, who secured the German team’s fastest lap - a 1’33.191, is joined by Ilya Mikhalchik and Kenny Foray.
EWC leaders and recent Bol d’Or winners, Gregg Black, Xavier Simeon and Sylvain Guintoli line up third for Yoshimura SERT.
Dan Linfoot and Donington BSB winner Gino Rea qualified fifth alongside Sheridan Morais, for Wójcik Racing Team, while Mike de Meglio, Loris Baz, Randy de Puniet, Florian Marino, Nicolas Terol and Filip Salac are also among the competitors for Saturday’s race.
