SERT quickest in Le Mans QP1
— SERT Report
Suzuki Endurance Racing Team is on provisional Pole Position for the fourth and final round of the 2013 FIM Endurance World Championship at Le Mans in France after the opening day of practice and qualifying.
Despite being down on its long-standing team member Anthony Delhalle – who broke his leg in two places and also his collarbone in a practice crash earlier this week – team riders Vincent Philippe, Julien Da Costa and Alex Cudlin topped the timesheets at the 36th Le Mans 24-Hours with a combined time of 1:38.023; which was just over 500ths-of-a-second ahead of SRC Kawasaki, with Yamaha GMT 94 in third position and the only other team to get under the 1:39.00-mark.
Fastest rider on track today was Da Costa, lapping the SERT GSX-R1000 around the 4.185km Circuit Bugatti with a time of 1:37.258. Second-fastest individual rider was SRC Kawasaki’s Fabien Foret (1:37.608) with his team-mate Gregory Leblanc third on 1:37.611, while SERT’s Philippe posted a time of 1:37.697. Fourth on the timesheets is the Belgian BMW Motorrad France Team Thevent ahead of Monster Energy Yamaha YART.
Junior Team LMS Suzuki is the leading Superstock team, with riders Baptiste Guittet, Etienne Masson and Guillaume Dietrich putting their GSX-R1000 into sixth place overall ahead of Bolliger Team Switzerland and Honda TT Legends. Team Louit Moto 33 (Kawasaki) is the second Superstock team ahead of Team Motors Events April Moto Suzuki riders Gregory Fastre, Michael Savary and Claude Lucas.
The French Suzuki-mounted Team R2CL, who currently holds fourth-equal standings in the World Endurance Championship, finished the opening day in 10th position with guest rider – Tyco Suzuki’s Guy Martin – putting-in a decent lap-time of 1:40.499 in his first ride on the team’s Endurance-spec Suzuki GSX-R1000 around the circuit.
The second qualifying practice sessions take place tomorrow and the average times of the three official riders over the two qualifying sessions will determine the order of the teams on the starting grid for Saturday’s race; that gets underway at 15:00hrs local time (GMT +2).
Le Mans 24-Hour 1st Qualifying: 1 SERT (Suzuki GSX-R1000) 1:38.023, 2 SRC Kawasaki (Kawasaki) 1:38.689, 3 Yamaha France GMT 94 (Yamaha) 1:38.864, 4 BMW Motorrad France (BMW) 1:39.380, 5 Monster YART (Yamaha) 1:39.701, 6 Junior Team LMS (Suzuki GSX-R1000) 1:39.731, 7 Team Bolliger Switzerland (Kawasaki) 1:39.735, 8 Honda TT Legends (Honda) 1:39.794, 9 Team Louit Moto 33 (Kawasaki) 1:39.927, 10 Team R2CL (Suzuki GSX-R1000) 1:40.015.
— Honda TT Legends Report
The final round of the 2013 FIM Endurance World Championship got underway today with the first qualifying sessions for the 24 Heures Moto at Le Mans. The Honda TT Legends currently lie in provisional eighth for Saturday’s race start at the legendary French circuit. Provisional pole was secured by SERT.
The Honda TT Legends took to the track in a determined frame of mind and it paid off, with all four riders posting laps in the 1m39s bracket and within a few tenths of each other. Michael Dunlop set the fastest lap of 1.39:486, but as the listed fourth rider his times do not count towards the overall ranking. The combined average of the lap times set by Michael Rutter, Simon Andrews and John McGuinness (1.39:794) sees the team place eighth.
With just 0.1 second keeping the Honda TT Legends from a top five position, the team is even more determined to improve its performance in the final qualifying session, which begins at 11.20 CET tomorrow morning.
Neil Tuxworth – team manager
This year’s hard work is starting to pay off and we’re seeing an improved performance all round. The riders did well today and it’s good to have them all so close to each other in lap times. The whole team is upbeat and determined to return a good result and because of that we find ourselves only a tenth off fifth place. Our aim now is to do everything we can to scale our times by that tenth to rank fifth or sixth.
John McGuinness – “A good start really. We’re definitely in the ball park. All four riders are within 0.4 of each other and we can only improve so I think we’ll be in a good strong position to start the race. The weather was good, the bike is good and the team is in great spirits.”
Michael Rutter – “I’m glad we had the test session on Tuesday as it meant we got a chance to learn the track a bit before we got started properly. It paid off as we’ve all done a 1.39 lap, which was the aim for today. Now we just need to go a bit faster tomorrow and hopefully we can get in the top five.”
Simon Andrews – “I’ve had a good day. We set out to achieve a lap time and we all reached it so that’s promising. The bike is going in the right direction, as is the mood of the team and we’re all looking forward to seeing what we can do tomorrow. I’m happy with my time, particularly in 60 bikes worth of traffic, but being so close to fifth is a great incentive to go quicker tomorrow.”
Michael Dunlop – “It’s been a good day for the team overall as we achieved what we set out to achieve. I’m learning the track and we’re making good progress with the bike. We just need to find a bit more tomorrow to get a bit higher on the timesheet.”
