SRC Kawasaki Racing Team, BMW Motorrad France 99 and SERT (Suzuki Endurance Racing Team) were separated within thousandths of a second. Kawasaki’s Julien da Costa lapped the circuit in 1’40.048 putting the ‘green machine’ on provisional pole position for the 24 hours race. The average time of the three Kawasaki riders was 1’40.938 and this secured the top spot place ahead of BMW Motorrad France 99’s overall time of just 1’40.951.
SERT’s rider Vincent Philippe scored the second best individual time of the day, 1’40.098, just 0.050 second slower than Julien da Costa. The Suzuki team is on the third spot of the grid in front of Monster YART Yamaha which scored an average lap time of 1’41.191.
Yamaha France GMT 94 Ipone’s 1’41.722 was good enough for fifth spot on the provisional starting grid, but not all hope is gone as there’s a second qualifying session taking place today.
The Superpole Session has been ruled out this season as the starting order for the 75th Bol d’Or endurance race will be decided by the average lap time of each team’s three riders.
Judging by these first qualifying lap times, the 2011 edition of the Bol D'or endurance race is going to be a thrilling one with the top teams battling out until the final hours of the competition.
The first round of the 2011 Qtel FIM Endurance World Championship will take place in France, on the Magny Cours racetrack, this weekend on April 16-17.
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