The Honda Racing team today qualified in provisional second place on the grid for the final round of the 2014 Endurance World Championship, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The first of two qualifying sessions took place in warm and sunny conditions this afternoon with Julien Da Costa, Sebastien Gimbert, Freddy Foray and reserve rider Jason O’Halloran taking to the circuit for 20 minutes apiece. Sebastien Gimbert was quickest aboard the Honda Racing CBR1000RR Fireblade SP with a time of 1:37.885.
The combined average of the first three riders’ times (1:38.067) places Honda Racing second on the grid, 0.8 seconds behind provisional pole sitter SRC Kawasaki. The second qualifying session will take place at 11.20am tomorrow. The 24 Hours of Le Mans is due to begin at 15.00 CEST on Saturday.
Neil Tuxworth team manager
We’ve been very strong in all of our sessions with all four of our riders. We made a lot of progress at the pre-Le Mans test a few weeks ago and in the free practice on Tuesday, so we’ve really been able to concentrate on the set up of the bike and we’ve had no major issues. All the riders are happy and I think we’re in a strong position at this stage.
Julien Da Costa
It’s been a busy day today and we’ve had some mixed weather with rain this morning and sun this afternoon, but we’ve made progress. The bike is good and we’re consistent with our times so we'll see if we can go quicker tomorrow.
Freddy Foray
We’ve had a good day because we’ve improved the bike a lot since the practice session on Tuesday. It is working well and we’re all doing good lap times so we are in a strong position.
Sebastien Gimbert
I am happy with today. We have had a lot of time of track and the crew have worked really hard on the bike since the free practice on Tuesday. I'm pleased with my time and we are all close together which is good, but hopefully we can improve even more tomorrow.
Jason O'halloran
It's my first time at Le Mans so I'm pretty happy with my time and being second quickest in my session. I'm really enjoying the track, the bike is going well and it's nice to be back with the EWC team.
