Britain’s Bradley Smith and his Factory Yamaha squad have taken second place in qualifying for the 2015 Suzuka Eight-Hours and now go through to the ten-bike Superpole shootout tomorrow morning.
Yamaha were beaten into second place by Team Green Kawasaki, who haven’t sat on pole since Anthony Gobert put them there in 1995, with both outfits dropping well into the 2’06s bracket. Pol Espargaro crashed at Degner (see below) which left Smith with the spare bike. But Smith also went down earlier in the day.
"It was unfortunate I crashed this morning. I was playing around with the braking mark and lost the front of the bike. It's good to have made that mistake, because it shows how easy those kinds of things can happen in the race. We worked on doing a race run first because it was around the same time of Sunday's race, so it gave everybody an idea of what to expect," said Smith.
"In the afternoon I wanted to push, and I was happy with my lap time 2'07,73, which is very close to Nakasuga and Pol's. I didn't want to take too many risks and was still third quickest, which is not bad. I was happy, because these were the first fast laps that I've done here, because before I've just been focusing on race pace. To have three riders within half a second is great, we are definitely the strongest team at the moment."
Alex Lowes’ Yoshimura Suzuki squad are in third place with reigning champions Musashi Honda in fourth - former MotoGP world champion Casey Stoner setting their best lap - both teams also in the 2’06s.
Team Kagayama, which features BSB star Ryuichi Kiyonari, took seventh place while the FCC TSR team, which has Kyle Smith and Dominique Aegerter, took eighth. Jason O’Halloran’s Dream Sakurai squad are ninth with Toni Elias and the Toho Moriwaki team in tenth.
Entrants to Superpole:
#87 Team Green
#21 Factory Yamaha
#17 Team Kagayama
#634 Musashi Honda
#12 Yoshimura Suzuki
#32 Motomap Supply Suzuki
#01 Trick Star Kawasaki
#778 FCC TSR Honda
#71 Dream Sakurai Honda
#104 Toho Moriwaki
The pace was hot in this morning’s opening qualifying session with the top teams shaving nearly a second off last year’s best times.
Two teams were neck and neck at the top of the timesheet. And though the Yamaha Factory Racing Team - Katsuyuki Nakasuga, Espargaro and Smith - was fastest with 2.06.877, the Yoshimura Suzuki Shell Advance trio comprising Takuya Tsuda, Lowes and Josh Waters was threateningly close behind, mere tenths of a second, with 2.06.958.
Australian Casey Stoner clocked the quickest time for the Musashi RT Harc-Pro Team, but teammate Takumi Takahashi fell, and the factory Honda took quite a knock. And his wasn’t the only fall. Team SRC Kawasaki too suffered falls by Grégory Leblanc and Matthieu Lagrive, while Flembbo Leader Team considerably damaging its Kawasaki.
Bastien Mackels, the BMW Motorrad France Team Penz13.com rider, also took a fall. His teammate Markus Reiterberger clocked the team’s fastest time, which means the bike got into the provisional top ten.
Among the permanent squads, the GMT94 Yamaha Racing performed well, with David Checa setting the team’s best time of 2.09.871.
