SUZUKI 5TH ON SLOVAKIA RING WORLD ENDURANCE GRID

2017-06-23 15:11
Series leaders Suzuki Endurance Racing Team will start tomorrow’s Slovakia Ring World Endurance Championship penultimate round from fifth position on their GSX-R1000 after the opening practice and qualifying sessions at the German circuit.

SERT, the defending 15-time World Champions, had set provisional third place in the intense heat of yesterday’s practice sessions, but this afternoon improved times in cooler temperatures, although slipping back slightly in the ranking; all team’s members took benefits from the final qualifying session to confirm the settings of their Suzuki GSX-R1000 to be more efficient for the race and are less-than-a-second off pole.

Vincent Philippe was the first to go on a still-wet track, because of a storm that hit the circuit last night. The 10-time World Champion got his leader status back by marking a better chrono than yesterday and the fastest time of the squad, with an amazing lap of 2.05.183 at the end of his session.

The two other riders – Etienne Masson and Alex Cudlin - also put-in good performances and even if Masson wasn’t as highly efficient as yesterday – when he was the fastest Suzuki rider - his lap-times are still comparable with the other top teams after setting a best-lap of 2.05.532.

Cudlin also showed much improvement in his session by recording a 2.05.780 at the end of his session and the Australian rider is now almost one second faster than yesterday, which puts SERT in a good position for tomorrow’s race that gets underway at 13:30hrs local time.


Slovakia Ring EWC Qualifying: 1 YART (Yamaha) 2:04.478, 2 GMT94 Yamaha (Yamaha) 2:04.906, 3 FCC TSR Honda (Honda) 2:05.263, 4 Team LRP Poland (BMW) 2:05.367, 5 SERT – (Suzuki GSX-R1000) 2:05.467.

Source: Team Suzuki Press Office

Click here to visit our forums to discuss this story

Headlines