MotoGP star Pol Espargaro has taken his second consecutive Suzuka Eight-Hours pole position for Yamaha this morning, setting a 2’06.258 to grab top spot but couldn’t quite match his 2’06.000 from last year.

Espargaro was the first of the Factory Yamaha riders to put in a time and it wasn’t beaten, even though team-mate and Yamaha golden boy Kats Nakasuga came close with a 2’06.435 after laying down the fastest first sector time.

“I’m very happy with this new pole position. We managed to tweak the settings to get a high-performance bike that suits all three riders. Katsuyuki Nakasuga will be at the start,” said Espargaro.

Yoshimura Suzuki’s Takuya Tsuda took second on the grid with a 2’06.405, only losing out to Espargaro in the last sector while Britain’s Leon Haslam was third on a 2’06.469 and the quickest of the works Kawasaki men, with Akira Yanagawa taking their first lap.

“We’ve worked hard these past few days to amp up our bike’s performance. The work paid off and enabled us to pick up second place on the grid,” said Tsuda.

Moto2 star Dominique Aegerter, who missed Thursday practice due to testing at the Red Bull Ring, was fourth quickest on a 2’07.248 for FCC TSR while the MuSASHi Honda squad slipped back to fifth place. Takumi Takahashi set their best of a 2’07.394, three tenths faster than team-mate Michael Van Der Mark who was on track earlier.

Nicky Hayden, Alex Lowes and Josh Brookes didn’t feature in their respective team’s final qualifying efforts. Suzuka’s Superpole is done in a curious way where the the teams that qualified from ten to six all go out first with their slowest rider first. Then teams five to one repeat that process, so each team gets two bites of the cherry.

Brookes didn’t ride even though he seriously outpaced Yoshimura team-mate Noriyuki Haga by a long way but you can bet that Haga generates way more publicity than the fiery Australian. Haga put in a 2’08.310, almost two seconds slower than Tsuda on the same bike.

Ryuichi Kiyonari took Team Kagayama to sixth place with Broc Parkes and YART seventh. Gino Rea’s Toho mob are eighth, Moto Map Supply - featuring Josh Waters - are ninth and Team JP Dogfight, whose rider Mark Aitchison crashed on his out lap, rounded out the top ten. (Click the link below for the full grid)

Superpole times

1 Yamaha Factory Racing 2’06.258
2 Yoshimyra Suzuki 2’06.405
3 Team Green Kawasaki 2’06.469
4 FCC TSR Honda 2’07.248
5 MuSASHi Honda 2’07.394
6 Team Kagayama 2’07.561
7 YART 2’08.602
8 Toho Honda 2’08.706
9 Moto Map Suzuki 2’09.774
10 JP Dogfight Yamaha 2’14.223

Top ten trial highlights: