Endurance: Espargaró powers to Yamaha pole at Suzuka

Pol Espargaró has powered to pole position for tomorrow’s Suzuka 8 Hour race on the Yamaha Factory Racing machine, setting a blistering lap time that none of his opposition was able to come within 0.1 of.

Both Takuya Tsuda on the Yoshimura Suzuki and Leon Haslam on the Team Green Kawasaki looked able to make any sort of challenge against him, but despite fastest first sectors for both of the pair they were unable to maintain the reigning champion’s pace over the one flying lap.

FCC TSR Honda were a strong fourth, with PJ Jacobsen setting a time faster than their rival factory Honda squad of double winners Michael van der Mark and Takumi Takahashi in fifth, while Ryuichi Kiyonari secured sixth for Team Kagayama Suzuki.

British Superbike new signing Broc Parkes was an impressive seventh on the Pirelli-shod Yamaha Austria bike in seventh, with Gino Rea’s Toho Honda and Josh Waters’ MotoMap Supply Suzuki rounding out the top nine. Team Dogfighting Yamaha were tenth after a crash on his out lap from Australian Mark Aitchison.

The superpole session won’t mean too much tomorrow’ however, with a traditional running start for the race meaning fitness plays a key. The race kicks off at 1130 local time (0330 UK time) and finishes eight hours later at 1930 (0730 UK time). The entire race is live on Eurosport 2.