SBK, Suzuka 8 Hours: HARC-PRO Honda ahead of everyone

The first day of official testing of the Suzuka 8 Hours, Tuesday 11 July, offered a good comparison between the HARC-PRO Honda, with Takumi Takahashi joined by Jack Miller and Takaaki Nakagami, Yamaha Factory, Yoshimura Suzuki and Kawasaki Team Green, all and four contained in just 59 thousandths.

The new CBR 1000RR Fireblade SP2 proves fast on a single lap and on race pace: the clear objective is to redeem the bad performances of the two-year period and return to victory on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the "race of races".

Takumi Takahashi, Honda MotoGP test rider, stopped the clocks in the second session at 2'07"783, while his teammate Jack Miller, the only representative of the top class here, set a time of 2'08"289, but between them we have the Yamaha Factory Racing Team with Katsuyuki Nakasuga in 2'08"126, the only one of the three starting riders to fall below the 2'09" mark, missed by Alex Lowes and Michael van der Mark.

However, Yamaha will have to deal with Yoshimura Suzuki (Takuya Tsuda, Sylvain Guintoli and Joshua Brookes) and Kawasaki Team Green (Leon Haslam "captain" in the crew with Kazuma Watanabe and Azlan Shah Kamaruzaman) close behind in the combined ranking of the times of the five sessions Yesterday.

In addition to these official teams, there is a large group of "outsiders" ready to exploit their every misstep: FCC TSR Honda with Dominique Aegerter, Stefan Bradl and Randy De Puniet (5th today), Honda Suzuka Racing Team with sixth time thanks to the young Daijiro Hiura (Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup), Yudai Kamei and Takahashi Yasuda.
Also worth mentioning in the top-10 is the returning Moriwaki team with the new Fireblade driven by Ryuichi Kiyonari, Yuki Takahashi and the BSB rider Dan Linfoot, with the peculiarity of Pirelli tyres.

On Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th July, all 59 teams present will take turns for the remaining days of official testing, in anticipation of the race scheduled for 30th July.

Below is the official ranking for Tuesday 11 July – Top-25:

01- MuSASHi RT HARC-PRO Honda – Honda CBR 1000RR SP2 – 2'07.783
02- Yamaha Factory Racing Team – Yamaha YZF R1 – 2'08.126
03- Yoshimura Suzuki Motul Racing – Suzuki GSX-R 1000 – 2'08.179
04- Kawasaki Team Green – Kawasaki ZX-10RR – 2'08.372
05- FCC TSR Honda – Honda CBR 1000RR SP2 – 2'08.419
06- Honda Suzuka Racing Team – Honda CBR 1000RR SP2 – 2'09.228
07- YART Yamaha – Yamaha YZF R1 – 2'09.351
08- Moriwaki Motul Racing – Honda CBR 1000RR SP2 – 2'09.540
09- S-Pulse Dream Racing IAI – Suzuki GSX-R 1000 – 2'09.545
10- Honda Dream Racing – Honda CBR 1000RR SP2 – 2'10.138
11- Team Kagayama – Suzuki GSX-R 1000 – 2'10.503
12- Team SuP Dream Honda – Honda CBR 1000RR SP2 – 2'10.507
13- SatuHAI Honda Team Asia – Honda CBR 1000RR SP2 – 2'10.990
14- BMW Motorrad39 – BMW S1000RR – 2'11.417
15- Honda Dream RT Sakurai Honda – Honda CBR 1000RR SP2 – 2'11.521
16- EVA RT Webike Trick Star – Kawasaki ZX-10R – 2'11.564
17- Akeno Speed ​​Yamaha – Yamaha YZF R1 – 2'11.750
18- TeamJP DFR & RS-Itoh – Kawasaki ZX-10RR – 2'11.762
19- Teluru Kohara RT – Honda CBR 1000RR SP2 – 2'11.844
20- Mistresa with ATJ Racing – Honda CBR 1000RR – 2'11.996
21- GMT94 Yamaha – Yamaha YZF R1 – 2'12.011
22- MotoMap Supply FutureAccess – Suzuki GSX-R 1000 – 2'12.044
23- Suzuki SERT – Suzuki GSX-R 1000 – 2'12.124
24- Titanium Power Hooters Racing – Yamaha YZF R1 – 2'12.143
25- KRP Sanyokogyo & RS-Itoh – Kawasaki ZX-10R – 2'12.282