Yesterday’s hierarchy changed late this morning when the track dried up at the end of the second qualifying session. The Suzuki Endurance Racing Team 1 of Vincent Philippe, Matthieu Lagrive and Julien Da Costa put their hands back on the pole position, due to a strong improvement of Julien Da Costa’s performance. SERT 1 is slightly ahead of Yamaha GMT 94 of Sébastien Gimbert, David Checa and Steve Plater, who also improved his lap times this morning. Sébastien Gimbert remains the faster at Magny-Cours, with his 1’40”826 lap made yesterday. The race will be tight between the SERT Suzuki 1, current World Champion, and 2007 Bol d’Or winner Yamaha GMT 94. They are not the only contenders for victory, however. Yamaha Austria Racing Team took third place on the starting grid with Igor Jerman, Steve Martin and Gwen Giabbani. YART is also leading by a small margin the Kawasaki France ridden by Erwan Nigon, Ivan Silva and Julian Mazuecos. The first four bikes on the starting grid are all below the 1’42 mark on the average time of their three riders. Fifth on the starting grid, the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team 2 remains in ambush ahead of Honda National Motos, who improved significantly their times with a great performance of Thomas Metro. Still doing great, the Suzuki Junior, engaged in the Superstock class with Kenny and Freddy Foray, and Emeric Jonchière, is in seventh place. Behind them are a group of permanents teams within the top-ten. Kawasaki Bolliger Swtizerland and the Yamaha Phase One Endurance and Folch Endurance are all within a few hundredth of a second. In the Superstock class dominated by the Suzuki Junior Team, are then on the starting grid the Honda Moto Revue with Jean-Michel Bayle, Sébastien Charpentier and Thierry Traccan and the Yamaha LTG 57. However, LTG 57 will have to do without their fastest rider: Franck Millet had a crash with another rider this morning and suffers from a broken leg and a abdomen concussion. Then comes the Suzuki Qatar Endurance Racing Team IJT, who made strong impression this morning as its rider Mashel Al-Naimi took the best lap of his qualifying session on a wet track. The Qatari rider, who had never been at Magny-Cours before, received congratulations yesterday already for his performance, with a 1’44”015 clocked from his first session. The Bihr Metiss remains the fastest machine in the Open class, ahead of the Ducati Endurance Racing 38 and the BMW HP2 Motorrad 1 and 2. The traditional pit-lane visit will take place today as from 5 pm. The start of the Bol d’Or, penultimate round of the 2008 Qtel FIM Endurance World Championship, will take place tomorrow at 3 pm. More, from a press release issued by Steve Plater’s publicist: Steve Plater will start this year’s Bol d’Or 24-hour World Endurance race from second place on the grid for the French Yamaha team GMT 94 behind current world champions SERT. Qualifying was a close run affair with SERT sealing pole position just a couple of hundredths of a second ahead of the GMT94 team which comprises of Steve Plater, Sebastien Gimbert and David Checa. The Yamaha team will be anxious to repeat last year’s result as they actually won the race in 2007. However Steve was not in the winning team last year as he was riding for Kawasaki France and they failed to finish because of mechanical problems with the machine during the night but he did finish third with Kawasaki in 2006. “We are in with a good chance of the win here at Magny Cours,” said Plater. “All three riders have a good race pace and the bike is running well for us. My team mate Sebastien Gimbert remains the fastest rider overall this weekend with a 1m 40,826s lap posted on Thursday and I bettered my earlier time by three quarters of a second today in final qualifying so we only missed out on pole position by a fraction of a second.” Asked what sort of result he was looking for this time, Plater replied: “Nothing less than a win will satisfy me this weekend.” The race will be tight between the SERT Suzuki 1, current World Champion, and 2007 Bol d’Or winner Yamaha GMT 94. They are not the only contenders for victory, however. Yamaha Austria Racing Team took third place on the starting grid with Igor Jerman, Steve Martin and Gwen Giabbani. YART is also leading by a small margin the Kawasaki France ridden by Erwan Nigon, Ivan Silva and Julian Mazuecos. The first four bikes on the starting grid are all below the 1’42 mark on the average time of their three riders. The race is set to begin at 2pm GMT (3pm CET) on Saturday and run all through the night with the three riders taking turns to ride for an hour each throughout the 24 hours until the chequered flag is waved at 2pm GMT on Sunday. The Bol d’Or is the penultimate round of the World Endurance championship in which Plater is holding second place in the championship with Yamaha Austria (YART). The final round is at Doha in Qatar on November 8 when Plater is expected to return to the YART team and is hoping to end the season on a high by sealing the World Endurance title with them. More, from a press release issued by Suzuki Endurance Racing Team: Suzuki Endurance Racing Team’s Vincent Philippe, Mathieu Lagrive and Julien Da Costa are on pole for tomorrow’s penultimate round of the World Endurance Championship at the Bol d’Or in France. Team rider Da Costa set the pace on the GSX-R1000 with a blistering 1:41.493 lap to beat Yamaha GMT (1:41.520) and Yamaha Austria Racing Team (1:41.881) SERT 2 riders William Costes, Guillaume Dietrich and Olivier Four will start from fifth position after setting a time of 1:42.252, while Junior Team Suzuki LMS Superstock class riders Kenny and Freddy Foray and Emeric Jonchiere qualified in seventh ahead of many of the permanent teams. The start of the Bol d’Or will take place tomorrow at 1500 hrs. Qualifying results: 1 SERT (Suzuki GSX-R1000) 1:41.493, 2 GMT 94 (Yamaha) 1:41.520, 3 Yamaha Austria Racing Team (Yamaha) 1:41.881, 4 Team Kawasaki France (Kawasaki) 1:41.930, 5 SERT 2 (Suzuki GSX-R1000) 1:42.252, 6 National Motos (Honda) 1:42.438, 7 Junior Team Suzuki MS (Suzuki GSX-R1000) 1:43.139, 8 Bolliger Team Switzerland (Kawasaki) 1:43.465, 9 Phase One Endurance (Yamaha) 1:43.540, 10 Yamaha Folch Endurance (Yamaha) 1:43.569.