After a hotly contested second qualifying session, Team Kawasaki SRC picked up a promising pole at the 12 Horas de Portimão.

After placing second in yesterday’s first qualifying session, Team Kawasaki SRC leveraged its team’s consistency and speed to take first place on the starting grid for tomorrow’s race on the challenging Portimão track. Matthieu Lagrive proved fastest this morning, setting a lap time of 1’45.992. His teammates recorded only minimally slower times: 1’46.271 for Fabien Foret and 1’46.508 for Gregory Leblanc. Their performances allowed them to pip their rivals to pole.

Work on the bike set-up was a tricky affair for the Kawasaki SRC team, who are giving their new ZX-10R only its second FIM EWC championship outing on the Portuguese circuit (a new event on the endurance world calendar), as the riders of the #11 bike explain.

Matthieu Lagrive
In the first qualifying session, we tested new technical solutions that proved unsatisfactory. So this morning we went back to the previous settings, which work better.

Gregory Leblanc
We’re on pole, but we aren’t always the fastest. Our strength is building a team with very consistent performance, but we still have to work out how to handle that fast final section of track.

Fabien Foret
We’re going to draw on our experience, and we’re feeling confident. It’s a demanding track though, and the fairly windy conditions make it harder to ride.

The 12 Horas de Portimão will be flagged off at 9.30am local time (GMT+1) on Saturday 11 June.

资料提供 [ Kawasaki Motors Europe ]