Honda Racing gets Oschersleben 8 hour underway in blaze of glory

Honda Racing have gotten qualifying for the third round of the Endurance World Championship underway in a blaze of glory, taking third provisionally for the Oschersleben 8 hour but cooking one of the team’s bikes in the process.

Both Sebastian Gimbert and Freddy Foray topped their respective qualifying runs, but a crash for Julien Da Costa during his brought out the red flags as his Fireblade SP went up in flames. However, benefitting from the series two bike rule, the team were quickly able to turn around the second machine to get Foray out on track.

After a number of luckless races in the series despite showing winning pace, team boss Neil Tuxworth says the weekend’s goals are to look forwards rather than back.

“There’s no denying that it’s been a difficult and frustrating season for the team so far, but looking at the positives, we’ve proven that we have the speed to lead and win races and that is what we are aiming to do in Germany. The whole team is still hungry for it and we’re putting the problems of the last two races behind us to focus on what we need to do to get our season back on track.”

It’s set to be a busy weekend for the team, with Foray flying on a private plane straight from the 8hr race to Cadwell Park following Saturday’s 8hr, to qualify for the National Superstock 1000 round at the team’s home round.

Provisional pole went to the factory supported Kawasaki SRC team of Greg Leblanc, Mathieu Lagrive and Fabian Foret, while second was the Monster Yamaha pair of Broc Parkes and Michael Laverty, on loan from the PBM Aprilia MotoGP team.