The Honda Endurance Racing team enjoyed solid first qualifying sessions with warm and dry weather conditions at the 5.8km Paul Ricard circuit, in southern France.
Honda’s endurance specialists Julien Da Costa, Freddy Foray and Sébastien Gimbert are taking part in the final Endurance World Championship round, where the team qualified provisional fourth aboard the Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP, with an average lap time of 1’59.802.
The first on track was Da Costa with the fifth best time of 1’59.798. Team-mate Gimbert was next and finished second in his session with a best lap time of 1’59.311. Foray with fifth with a time of 2’00.297 and finally Keith Amor (the squad's reserve rider) had the tenth fastest time with 2’04.857.
The Honda Endurance Racing team finished the day fourth out of 55 teams and has worked hard to be prepared for this weekend's 24-hour Bol d’Or race.
The second qualifying sessions will start at 11:00 (GMT+1) on Friday 18 September.
Julien Da Costa
It went better than expected! We’re not on the exact same pace as the first team today because we had mixed track conditions and we had to work a lot on the set-up. We are quite satisfied and will work to improve for tomorrow!
Sébastien Gimbert
I am happy because we have sorted out a few small issues. I am also happy because my lap time was good, even if there was a lot of traffic on track. Tomorrow’s goal will be to do the perfect lap! We’ve got the fourth best time overall without using the qualifying tyre, which is already satisfying because we are working for the race and it’s going well - but I am a competitor and what I want for tomorrow is to get the best lap time.
Freddy Foray
We had a few issues during the week, but in spite of this we can clearly see that there’s good progression. The feeling is getting better and better with the CBR. This afternoon the track temperature was ideal for us so it’s positive. I am looking forward to tomorrow to improve again, but the feeling is already good.
Keith Amor
It’s a really enjoyable circuit on which I had a lot of fun; unfortunately we only had five laps in qualifying and during practice it was on a drying track, so I didn’t really learn too much. But I really enjoyed riding the CBR, it was good fun and hopefully we can get more laps tomorrow and learn a bit more.
