Valentino Rossi was fastest in practice for the Suzuka 8-Hour in Suzuka, Japan on Friday, turning a best time of 2:07.349 on a Honda RC51. Makoto Tamada was second-fastest at 2:07.597 on another RC51, followed by Suzuki’s Akira Ryo at 2:07.783 and Tamada’s teammate Tohru Ukawa at 2:07.894.

Leading Superbike teams include:
Tohru Ukawa/Daijiro Katoh/Makoto Tamada (Honda) with an average time of 2:07.812
Valentino Rossi/Colin Edwards/Shinichi Ito (Honda) with an average time of 2:08.240
Akira Ryo/Kagayama/Watanabe (Suzuki) with an average time of 2:08.335
Tadayuki Okada/Alex Barros/Manabu Kamada (Honda) with an average time of 2:08.353
Akira Yanagawa/Hito Izutsu (Kawasaki) with an average time of 2:08.512
Takeda/Yamaguchi (Honda) with an average time of 2:08.640
Noriyuki Haga/Anthony Gobert (Yamaha) with an average time of 2:09.106
T. Serizawa/Gregorio Lavilla/Ian MacPherson (Kawasaki) with an average time of 2:09.239

The leading SuperProduction teams were:
Deguchi/Giles/Kawase (Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000) with an average time of 2:10.211
Kitagawa/Arakaki/Toda (Suzuki GSX-R1000) with an average time of 2:10.416

Selected individual rider times follow:

Valentino Rossi, Honda RC51, 2:07.349
Akira Ryo, Suzuki GSX-R750, 2:07.783
Tohru Ukawa, Honda RC51, 2:07.894
Y. Kagayama, Suzuki GSX-R750, 2:07.983
Makoto Tamada, Honda RC51, 2:07.597
Tadayuki Okada, Honda RC51, 2:07.910
Daijiro Katoh, Honda RC51, 2:07.946
T. Yamaguchi, Honda RC51, 2:08.189
Alex Barros, Honda RC51, 2:08.327
Akira Yamagawa, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:08.497
Hito Izutsu, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:08.527
W. Yoshikawa, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:08.573
T. Serizawa, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:08.604
K. Kitagawa, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:08.608
Shinichi Ito, Honda RC51, 2:08.683
Colin Edwards, Honda RC51, 2:08.689
O. Deguchi, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:08.693
Gregorio Lavilla, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:08.696
Naoki Matsudo, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:08.709
M. Kamada, Honda RC51, 2:08.823
Anthony Gobert, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:09.086
Y. Takeda, Honda RC51, 2:09.092
Noriyuki Haga, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:09.127
A. Watanabe, Suzuki GSX-R750, 2:09.239
O. Nishijima, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:09.711
Sean Giles, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:09.838
T. Arakaki, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:09.884
R. Tsuruta, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:10.051
D. Sakai, Honda RC51, 2:10.118
Ian MacPherson, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 2:10.418
T. Hamaguchi, Moriwaki Honda RC51, 2:10.604
M. Maruyama, Honda RC51, 2:10.662
Stephane Mertens, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:11.342
T. Honma, Yamaha YZF-R7, 2:11.598
K. Hasegawa, Honda RC51, 2:11.921
H. Kawase, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:12.104
T. Toda, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:12.756
Michael Barnes, Suzuki GSX-R1000, 2:14.025
K. Kosaka, Suzuki GSX-R1000m 2:14.528