Factory Yamaha tops opening day at Suzuka

The Yamaha Factory Racing Team of Bradley Smith, Pol Espargaro and Kats Nakasuga have topped the opening day of practice for this year’s Suzuka 8 Hour race, taking the top spot by almost a full second from the Toho Racing Honda team.

Toho Racing, with former Moto2 world champion Tony Elias and World Supersport race winner Ratthapark Wilairot joining Tatsuya Yamaguchi on the privateer Honda, held off Yoshimura Suzuki for the second spot, with former winners FCC TSR Honda just holding off reigning champions MuSASHi RT Honda, with world champions Casey Stoner and Michael van der Mark joining Takumi Takahashi.

All-Japanese dream team Kagayama Suzuki, with Nori Haga, Ryuichi Kiyonari and Yuki Kagayama onboard, were just squeezed to seventh by the TeamGreen Kawasaki outfit, while GMT94 Yamaha were the best of the regular EWC teams in ninth.

Kiyonari was a faller in the second session, getting caught out by a slower rider at Spooner curve, but was unhurt.

Jason O’Halloran and the Honda Dream Sakuri bike was fourteenth overall, ahead of the Honda Racing squad that works out of his BSB team’s base in Lincolnshire. They were followed in sixteenth by the Penz13.com BMW team, with Tommy Bridewell setting the squad’s best time, and Monster Energy Yamaha Austria in seventeenth, with BSB racer Broc Parkes onboard.

Scotsman Jimmy Storrar rounded out the UK riders on the R2CL bike, finishing the day in the mid-thirties.

However, with the top teams running in two separate groups – and the first session of the day hit by heavy rain – it’s hard to read too much into today’s times. Tomorrow sees more easily comparable competition, with riders getting a 20-minute slot of their own.

1	Yamaha Factory Racing Team	2’07.282
2	Toho Racing with Moriwaki	2’08.254
3	Yoshimura Suzuki Shell Advance	2’08.403
4	FCC TSR Honda	2’08.438
5	MuSASHi RT Harc-Pro Honda	2’08.462
6	TeamGreen Kawasaki	2’08.576
7	Team Kagayama Suzuki	2’08.660
8	Kohara RT Honda	2’09.624
9	GMT94 Yamaha	2’10.094
10	Suzuki Endurance Racing Team	2’10.181