Source: FIM.

After being fourth in qualifying, Josh Waters’ Yoshimura Suzuki Shell Advance Team took pole position with an historic lap in the Top 10 session by Takuya Tsuda of 2m06.703.

This supersedes the 2012 performance by Katsuyuki Nakasuga of 2m06.817, who this year takes second place on the grid with a time of 2m07.094 for the Monster Energy Yamaha Team with YSP team of Josh Brookes and Broc Parkes.

Third is the the FCC TSR Honda squad, who for a long time topped the hotly contested Superpole session thanks to a lap of 2m07.398 by Jonathan Rea.

The English rider seemed quite surprised by his performance this afternoon at Suzuka. Riding the FCC TSR Honda, Rea has gone from a time of 2m09.062 during yesterday’s qualifying to 2m07.398 in the Top 10 shootout.

Kawasaki’s Team Green confirmed its good performance this weekend by taking fourth place on the grid just in front of the Honda Musashi Harc-Pro Team who gave away their first place in qualifying and will now start in fifth position tomorrow.

In sixth position Team Kagayama & Verity are in front of the Honda Suzuka Racing Team and the Honda Endurance Racing Team, the latter of which were the only permanent squad who took part in Superpole, which is reserved for the top 10 from qualifying.

The Honda Racing Endurance Team therefore start in eighth place on the grid. Sébastien Gimbert was unable to better his performance in qualifying, but Julien Da Costa has greatly improved his best time of 2m09.891.

The Toho Racing Team with Moriwaki (Honda) and the Legend of Yoshimura Suzuki Shell Advance occupy the final two places in the Top 10 and on the grid for Sunday’s race.

While Waters’ team will be first on the grid and the Brookes/Parkes combination second, next best of the Aussies will be Damian Cudlin’s SERT squad in 13th, directly ahead of Josh Hook’s Honda Team Asia and Troy Herfoss/Jamie Stauffer’s Honda Dream RT Sakurai Honda. Monster Energy YART’s Wayne Maxwell and Rick Olson ended up 22nd, two positions ahead of Gareth Jones’ Team R2CL Suzuki outfit in 22nd.

The 37th edition of the Suzuka 8 hours will start tomorrow, Sunday at 1:30pm with the finish due at 7:30pm, a little over half an hour after sunset. 70 teams will take part in the race, the maximum number of machines allowed for this event at Suzuka.

2014 FIM Endurance World Championship
Round two – Suzuka, Japan

Top 10 Trial results: