Endurance World Championship

Akira Ryo will start tomorrow's Suzuka 8 Hours Endurance race from pole position. The Team Suzuki rider grabbed top spot on the grid with a superb lap in the final 'Special Stage' held at the 5.864km circuit today.

Qualifying for the race is held over two days with the best lap times of each team rider combined to establish their average speed. The grid is then locked, the top 20 teams apart.

The two fastest riders from the top 20 teams each try to better their time via the Special Stage, a 'Double Superpole' type shoot out. The time set by the fastest man in the team establishing their position on the grid.

At the end of two days of qualifying it was 2000 race winners Tohru Ukawa and Daijiro Katoh, together with reserve rider Makoto Tamada (Cabin Honda), set the pace from Ryo, Yukio Kagayama and Akira Watanabe, with the Cabin Honda's of Valentino Rossi, Colin Edwards and Shinichi Itoh plus that of Tadayuki Okada, Alex Barros and Manabu Kamada.

Fastest lap in regular qualifying was set by Rossi. His time of 2m 07.349s was four-tenths of a second faster than that of Ryo and a further tenth faster than Ukawa.

Rossi commented - "Pole position would have been great but because I had a silly crash this morning I did not go as hard as maybe I could have. It is disappointing to set a 2m 07.3s in regular qualifying and then get a 2m 08.1s in the attack stage. But second place is perfect for us, the race is not decided in practice and the race is eight hours long. Colin (Edwards) is also having a good feeling and the machine is fine, so we are looking forward to tomorrow's race. All we have to do is not crash like last year. Tomorrow, I take the start. It's a first experience for me and I'm looking forward to it. I'm quite good at running, you know!"

In the special stage Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha) was first man close to breaking the 2m 09s barrier missing out by just 0.010s. The Kawasaki of Hitoyasu Izutsu was the first to dip under 2m 09s, taking provisional pole in the process. Okada was next to try but failed and will take fifth place along the pit wall in the Le Mans type start.

Rossi was next to go out and, despite a crash in the morning free practice session, set a blistering time of 2m 08.146s. But Ryo had been in good form all weekend and went even faster with a time of 2m 08.093s pushing Rossi, Edwards and Itoh into second spot.

That left Honda's hopes of pole position riding on the shoulders of Ukawa's cabin Honda. It was not to be, Ukawa, at his own admission, was well off the pace and their team will start from third, courtesy of Katoh's time.

Okada, Barros and Tamada start from sixth place ahead of the Yamaha's of Haga and Anthony Gobert, and the second team machine of Naoki Matsudo and Wataru Yoshikawa.

The Team Kohtake & Sakurai Honda VTR of Yuichi Takeda and Tetsuya Yamaguchi take ninth place on the grid.

Australian SuperBike Champion Shawn Giles with team-mate Deguchi qualified 12th.

1 Akira RYO / Yukio KAGAYAMA / Atsushi WATANABE / GSX-R 750 / 2m08.09s
2 Valentino ROSSI / Colin EDWARDS / Shinichi ITOH / VTR SP / 2m08.14s
3 Tohru UKAWA / Daijiro KATOH / Makoto TAMADA / VTR SP / 2m08.28s
4 Akira YANAGAWA / Hitoyasu IZUTSU / ZX-7RR / 2m08.30s
5 Tadayuki OKADA / Alexandre BARROS / Manabu KAMADA / VTR SP / 2m08.38s
6 Noriyuki HAGA / Anthony GOBERT / Chojun KAMEYA / YZF-R7 / 2m09.01s
7 Wataru YOSHIKAWA/ Naoki MATSUDO / Toshihiko HONMA / YZF-R7 / 2m09.04s
8 Keiichi KITAGAWA / Toshiyuki ARAKAKI / Takashi TODA / GSX-R 1000 / 2m09.14s
9 Yuichi TAKEDA / Tatsuya YAMAGUCHI / VTR SP / 2m09.16s
10 Osamu NISHIJIMA / Ryuji TSURUTA / Shinichiro IMAI / ZX-7RR / 2m09.60s
11 Tamaki SERIZAWA / Gregorio LAVILLA / Iain MACPHERSON / ZX-7RR / 2m09.63s
12 Osamu DEGUCHI / Shawn GILES / Hiroaki KAWASE / GSX-R 1000 / 2m09.80s
13 Yoshiteru KONISHI / Tekkyu KAYOH / Honda / 2m11.57s
14 Norihiko FUJIWARA / Noriyasu NUMATA / Osamu MIYAZAKI / YZF-R7 / 2m11.80s
15 Shinichi NAKATOMI / Ryuichi KIYONARI / Honda / 2m11.81s
16 Katsunori HASEGAWA / Hiroshi MARUYAMA / VTR SP / 2m12.31s
17 Daisaku SAKAI / Hiroki NODA / VTR SP / 2m12.33s
18 Stephane MERTENS / Warwick NOWLAND / GSX-R 1000 / 2m12.67s

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