Suzuka 8-Hour Endurance Race
The final grid is set for the 8 hour race at Suzuka with Honda on the pole. SuperbikePlanet has the details-
Here is your final grid (top ten) for Sunday’s Suzuka 8-Hour endurance classic, with Takeshi Tsujimura & Shinichi Itoh, riding for the FCC TSR ZIP-FM Racing Team, in pole position following today’s superpole style qualifying session. Itoh was the man to set the fastest time during the ‘jump-up’ stage.
Ryuichi Kiyonari & Makoto Tamada will start from second spot, the Seven Stars Honda 7 duo ending their run 0.045 seconds behind the leading red-machine partnership. BSB star Kiyonari was the rider who set the time aboard the full-factory Honda CBR1000RRW machine, with Tamada way off the pace.
Yoshiteru Konishi & Takashi Yasuda (Toy Story HARC-PRO Honda) are in third, HRC completing a clean sweep of the top four places on the grid with Yukuke Tejima & Gaku Kamada (FCC TSR ZIP-FM Racing Team)in fourth.
Former Suzuka 8-Hour winners, Colin Edwards and Nori Haga, will start from seventh on the grid for the Yamaha Blue Racing Team, 0.737 seconds in arrears of Tsujimura & Itoh, Edwards nailing the hot lap for the former Aprilia GP teamsters during the ‘attack stage’.
The race is due off at 11.30am, local time, tomorrow (Sunday). The 29th Coca-Cola sponsored Suzuka event will no doubt be a Honda love-in unless the likes of Haga and Edwards can spoil the party in the land of the rising sun.