Penultimate round of the Qtel FIM Endurance World Championship, the 72nd Bol d’Or will be a race under high strain. On the starting grid, the gap between all the favourites is very small. Suzuki Endurance Racing Team 1 took the pole position yesterday after a hundredth of a second of battle with Yamaha GMT 94, fastest on Thursday after the first qualifying session. The arm-wrestling match went on again this morning at the warm-up, and the Yamaha GMT 94 took a tiny advantage over Kawasaki France, Suzuki Endurance Racing Team and Yamaha Austria Racing Team, all of them open contenders for victory. To be found in a different order on the starting grid, those four bikes were the only ones below the 1’42 mark this morning at Magny-Cours. In the second group of podium contenders are the Le Mans winner SERT Suzuki 2, the Honda National Motos who discreetly came-back in the foreground, the Superstock Suzuki from the Junior Team, the Kawasaki Bolliger Switzerland and the Yamahas from British Phase One Endurance and Spanish Folch Endurance. Many riders had been caught this morning by a cold track, despite a shy sun shining over Magny-Cours. With no further consequences, Jason Pridmore crashed this morning on the Maco Moto Racing Team, as well as Paolo Tessari on the Yamaha La Fortezza Amadeus X-One and Dani Ribalta on the Yamaha Folch Endurance. For the latter, though, consequences were a bit more complicated, as track marshalls noticed some smoke on the R1 number 4. In the Superstock class, behind the Suzuki Junior Team who plays ahead with the big boys are, according to the starting grid order, the Honda Moto Revue and two permanent teams fighting for the FIM World Cup, Qatar Endurance Racing Team IJT and LTG 57. On the Yamaha LTG 57, Gregory Leblanc replaced Franck Millet, who got seriously injured during the qualifying session. For a good competition, QERT IJT also took the Junior Team spare rider, Luca de Carolis, to replace their own slower rider. The Bol d’Or will start today at 3 pm. The local weather forecast still predicts random thundershowers this afternoon, but for now the sky remains clear and cool over Magny-Cours.