Yoshiteru Konishi has taken provisional pole position for the Suzuka 8 Hour round of the FIM World Endurance Championship. Second place has gone to Yoshimura Suzuki’s Akira Watanabe and third to Yamaha Blue Racing’s Noriyuki Haga. The morning qualifying sessions were held in the dry and for the most part under a blazing sun. The weather for the afternoon sessions was much more mixed and despite little rain actually falling on the circuit, many of the afternoon qualifying sessions were declared officially “wet”. When a qualifying session is declared wet, the Suzuka-only “four sets of tyres for qualifying” rule does not apply to that session; teams may use extra tyres during that session. With the “wet” track almost bone dry there was an opportunity for teams to use special qualifying tyres which would only last two or three laps. It seemed that only one rider rider Konishi on the No.101Toy Story Honda seemed to take the chance, improving his time significantly from this morning’s session by 1.5 seconds, setting the fastest lap of the session and becoming the first rider to break into the 2:09s during timed qualifying. Yoshimura Suzuki’s Akira Watanabe was fastest in Group B and second fastest overall after Yamaha Blue Racing’s Nori Haga missed beating him by just 0.05 seconds after catching a slower rider while braking for the final chicane. Fourth place overall went to Shin’ichi Itoh on the FCC TSR Honda and fifth to Yamaguchi on the Masked Rider Honda. The two Seven Stars Hondas performed less well than expected, finishing in ninth and tenth place overall. Suzuki Castrol’s Vincent Philippe improved slightly on his earlier time in the afternoon session, as did Yamaha Austria’s Igor Jerman and Yamaha Acropolis Zone Rouge’s Michel Nickmans. Yamaha Phase One’s Damian Cudlin, Kawasaki Bolliger’s Patric Muff, Suzuki Fagersjo-el.se’s Paul Young and Kawasaki Diablo’s James Hutchins also improved in the afternoon sessions. Suzuki Castrol’s Keiichi Kitagawa improved on his time in his afternoon session but then threw away a chance to improve further when he crashed on the first corner of his final lap of the day. Suzuki Endurace Moto45’s Duprez also crashed in his afternoon session, despite this being the first session not officially declared wet. Matthieu Lagrive was third in his group, the last session of the day. His final lap saw him sliding, wheelying and spinning his way round the circuit, with no sign of traction control being used on the Castrol Suzuki GSX-R1000s! Unusually, two riders Kamada and Osaki have posted identical qualifying times. The final top ten grid positions will be decided tomorrow afternoon during the Top Ten Trial super pole style special stage. Provisional Qualifying Top Ten 1st 101 Toy Story Honda JPN Honda CBR1000RR Y.Konishi 2:09.176 2nd 12 Yoshimura Suzuki JPN A.Watanabe Suzuki GSX-R1000 2:09.636 3rd 45 Yamaha Blue Racing JPN N.Haga Yamaha YZF-R1 2:09.687 4th 778 FCC TSR Honda JPN Honda CBR1000RR S.Itoh 2:09.950 5th 48 FCC TSR Honda JPN Honda CBR1000RR G.Kamada 2:09.975 5th 39 Team Challenger Yamaha JPN Yamaha YZF-R1 N.Osaki 2:09.975 7th 04 Masked Rider Honda JPN Honda CBR1000RR T.Yamaguchi 2:10.018 8th 21 YSP & Presto Yamaha JPN Yamaha YZF-R1 K.Nakasuga 2:10.052 9th 7 Seven Stars Honda JPN Honda CBR1000RR R.Kiyonari 2:10.089 10th 11 Seven Stars Honda JPN Honda CBR1000RR T.Okada 2:10.199 Qualifying Times Permanent Teams 15th 1 Suzuki Castrol FRA Suzuki GSX-R1000 V.Philippe 2:11.795 38th 07 Yamaha Austria AUT Yamaha YZF-R1 I.Jerman 2:15.372 43rd 199 Yamaha Acropolis Zone Rouge BEL Yamaha YZF-R1 M.Nickmans 2:15.730 47th 3 Yamaha Phase One Endurance GBR- Yamaha YZF-R1 D.Cudlin 2:15.957 50th 8 Kawasaki Bolliger SUI Kawasaki ZX10R P.Muff 2:16.348 58th 012: Suzuki Fagersjo-el.se SWE Suzuki GSX-R1000 P Young 2:17.658 59th 666 Kawasaki Diablo GBR Kawasaki ZX10R J.Hutchins 2:18.659 60th 6 Shell Endurance Academy GBR Yamaha YZF-R1 A.Dubelski 2:18.808 61st 44 Suzuki No Limits & RT ITA Suzuki GSX-R1000 F.Jond 2:19.334 62nd 100 Suzuki Endurance Moto45 FRA Suzuki GSX-R1000 D.Briere 2:19.761