The Honda Endurance Racing Team has topped the time sheets during the free practice and the three qualifying sessions at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Montmeló.
Honda’s endurance specialists Julien Da Costa, Freddy Foray and Sébastien Gimbert have impressed today in Barcelona during free practice and qualifying practice with warm and dry conditions.
In the first qualifying session, Julien Da Costa has made a best lap time of 1’49.190, then Sébastien Gimbert finished his session on top in 1’48.309 and Freddy Foray made the best lap time of his session with 1’49.696.
With an average lap time of 1’49.065 the Honda Endurance Racing team will start the 24 Hours of Catalunya from pole position.
Honda’s endurance riders will make the most of their track time to test the Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP in the dark with the night practice session from 22:00 to 23:30, before the race start on Saturday at 15:00 local time.
Julien Da Costa, Freddy Foray and Sébastien Gimbert are confident ahead of the start of the 24 Hours of Catalunya and will push as hard as they can to collect as much data as they can in real race conditions in order to prepare for the Suzuka 8 Hours.
For all the latest news on the team in real time follow @HondaRacingCBR on Twitter.
Steven Casaer
Today went really well, we didn’t focus on qualifying because this is really a test for us. We did race simulation stints, so all the riders went out for the full qualifying and we used them to do fuel calculations as we usually do when we have more free practice, but still we were fastest on each session so that’s quite good. We’re putting on new parts on the bike just to make sure everything is working fine for the night practice. The guys did a great job; we’re very satisfied!
Freddy Foray
It’s really great to be on pole position. The circuit is nice to ride, the CBR is working well, and we haven’t had any problems for now so everything is really positive. I am looking forward to ride by night – I think that the more we’ll practice, the more we’ll enjoy the track. I’m really happy at the moment!
Sébastien Gimbert
It is good to be on pole because we haven’t had much track time, we didn’t know the track very well and had no points of reference with the bike at all, but the whole team was very responsive. I think that we’ll be able to improve our lap times again because we are still working on the setup of the bike. This circuit is really great and this race would deserve to be included in the Endurance World Championship because the organisation is perfect and very competent. Now I hope that we’ll be there at the finish line on Sunday afternoon.
Julien Da Costa
It is only a test for us so there’s no pressure at all. I am very satisfied with the work done on the CBR. Tomorrow will be a long race and I hope that the work done by the whole team will pay off.
