24H Moto du Mans: the n ° 11 Kawasaki will start on pole
Super Pole: Kawasaki confirms !
Super Pole: Kawasaki confirms !
The Kawasaki n ° 11, masterfully driven by Julien Da Costa, Olivier Four and Gregory Leblanc, will start from pole position of the 33rd 24H Moto du Mans tomorrow at 3:00 pm on the Bugatti circuit. !
The French trio indeed won the Super Pole this afternoon, which brought together the teams who created the 20 best times of the two official sessions on Thursday and Friday, on the same principle as the Superbike and Formula 1 tests with Q1, Q2 and Q3. Each team had to send on the track only one of its three pilots, timed on a single running lap.
For the ZX-10R n ° 11 of the Kawasaki GSR team, Julien da Costa covered the 4.185 km of the circuit in 1’37.783 ahead of Vincent Philippe on the GSX-R n ° 2 from SERT and Matthieu Lagrive on the CBR n ° 99 of the BMP Elf 99 Racing Team.
"I’m happy with this qualification in third position but I know that without the chattering problem, we could have finished on pole," said Matthieu Lagrive. "With the bike as it is now, it’s hard to push really hard but you can still do decent times, so the race looks good. 24 hour races are always hard to predict, but if you doesn’t have a major problem I think there is a good chance that we will be on the podium on Sunday afternoon. I don’t think that is unrealistic, given our pace during free practice and qualifying. ".
As for the Suzuki n ° 110 AM Moto Racing, it will start from 8th place on the starting grid. "It’s true perf ‘because the field is very high this year", rejoices Fabrice Auger who will take the start himself tomorrow at 3:00 pm. "The weather is fine and more than 100,000 spectators are expected, we hope that everything will go well … The whole team is back together and we will give everything for 24 hours!", Warns the pilot Reims.
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Top 10 of the second session |
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Second session: Kawasaki persists !
The Kawasaki n ° 11 of the French trio Julien Da Costa, Olivier Four and Gregory Leblanc, already author of the best time of the first session yesterday (read below), again set the best time of the second qualifying practice with an average time of 1’38.500, a little faster than that of the first session (1’38.710).
As yesterday, the Kawasaki is ahead of the Suzuki n ° 2 of SERT (second at 378 thousandths of the leaders) in front of a trio of Honda, but this time with the n ° 99 BMP Elf (3rd at 646 thousandths), the n ° 55 National Moto (4th at 719 thousandths and n ° 63 Michelin which loses two places to appear in 5th position at 741/1000.
The No. 1 Yamaha of the reigning world champion Yamaha Austrian Racing Team retains its 6th place one second ahead of the No. 17 BMW (7th at 1.2 seconds), while the No. 94 Yamaha stagnates at a disappointing 10th place more than 2 seconds behind the leaders in 1’40.660…
"We are heading into the unknown for this first race," admits GMT 94 on its official website, "but we are all motivated and hope to play a good card. 24 hours is a long time and we are preparing for it!"
The absolute best time of the day was set by Damian Cudlin riding the Honda # 99 BMP Elf, with a time of 1’38.243 (photo below).
First session: the Kawasaki n ° 11 of the GSR team starts strong !
The n ° 11 Kawasaki of team Gilles Staeffler Racing took the advantage during the first qualifying practice yesterday at Le Mans ahead of the n ° 2 Suzuki of SERT and the n ° 63 Honda of the Michelin Power Racing Team.
On-board camera tour with Fabrice Auger on Suzuki n ° 110 AM Moto Racing (24 Heures Moto du Mans 2009).
After the twist of free practice which saw Sebastien Charpentier abruptly interrupt his adventure on the BMW S1000RR n ° 17 (read), the first qualifying session gave rise to a real fight yesterday afternoon at Le Mans.
With three Honda in the top 5, the lap times of this first qualifying session at the average of the three drivers highlighted the good form of Julien da Costa, Olivier Four and Gregory Leblanc who put the Kawasaki in the lead ahead of Vincent Philippe, Guillaume Dietrich and Freddy Foray on the Suzuki and William Costes, Hugo Marchand and Josep Monge on the Honda n ° 63.
The Michelin Power Research Team’s CBR is immediately followed in the same second by two colleagues the new Honda BMP Elf n ° 99 in the hands of Matthieu Lagrive (fastest driver on the track), Werner Daemen and Damian Cudlin (4th) and the famous n ° 55 in National Motos with Sebastien Scarnato, Emeric Jonchière and Sylvain Barrier (5th).
We had to wait for 6th place to find the first Yamaha with the reigning world champion Yamaha Austria Racing Team (YART) in the hands of Igor Jerman, Steve Martin and Gwen Giabbani. The Yamaha n ° 94 of GMT, in delicacy with its new Bridgestone tires, is only 10th to 2 seconds of the leaders: the team of Christophe Guyot is currently behind the Suzuki RAC 41 City Bike of Greg Junod, Greg Black and Olivier Depoorter (7th), the BMW Michelin n ° 17 of Sebastien Gimbert, Erwan Nigon and Bertrand Stey – previously replacing on the Honda n ° 63 (8th) and the Suzuki n ° 72 of the Junior Team, first Superstock with Cedric Tangre , Lucas de Carolis and Bertrand Guitter (9th).
In Superstock, the n ° 9 BMW Andalucia by Alvaro Molina, Camille Hedelin and Augustin Rosivall came second ahead of the n ° 199 Yamaha Bikersdays by Gregory Fastre, Denis Bouan and Raymond Schouten.
The second qualifying session is currently taking place … Stay tuned !
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