Suzuki Castrol Provisional Pole for Albacete 8H Strong Challenge from Spanish Wildcards Suzuki Castrol’s Matthieu Lagrive has taken provisional pole position for tomorrow’s Albacete 8 Horas Nocturnas third round of the FIM World Endurance Championship. He recorded a best lap time of 1:31.888 in the closing minutes of the last qualifying session this evening, beating his team mate Vincent Philippe and becoming the only rider to dip below the 1 minute 32 second barrier. Times are expected to fall further during final qualifying, which will be held in cooler conditions tomorrow morning. Vincent Philippe, Suzuki Castrol: “I think tomorrow will be faster, for sure. The track will be much better for corner grip. For the race, we will see.” Second and third places went to the two wildcard Spanish Folch Yamaha entries, fourth place was taken by Yamaha Phase One Endurance’s Warwick Nowland and fifth by an injured Gwen Giabbani of Yamaha Austria. Giabbani highsided at the end of the second free practice session, needing stitches to an elbow wound. Four Yamahas made the top five on the provisional grid and six made it into the top ten, joined by two Suzukis and two Kawasakis. There are also seven different nations represented on the provisional grid. The final starting order for the Albacete 8 Horas Nocturnas race will be decided by further qualifying sessions for each rider tomorrow morning, with the race itself starting at 18:00 tomorrow evening and running through until 02:00 on Sunday morning. Provisional Top Ten Qualifying Positions 1st 1 – Suzuki Castrol Team – FRA – Suzuki GSX-R1000 – M.Lagrive – 1:31.888 2nd 23 – Yamaha Folch Endurance – SPA – Yamaha YZF-R1 – J.Sarda – 1:33.790 3rd 31 – Yamaha Folch Endurance 2 – SPA – Yamaha YZF-R1 – J.Monge – 1:34.349 4th 3 – Yamaha Phase One Endurance – GBR – Yamaha YZF-R1- W.Nowland – 1:34.372 5th 7- Yamaha Austria – AUT – Yamaha YZF-R1 – G.Giabbani – 1:34.878 6th 12 – Suzuki Fagersjo-el.se – SWE – Suzuki GSX-R1000 – T.Andersson – 1:35.066 7th 8 – Kawasaki Bolliger Team – SUI – Kawasaki ZX10R – P.Muff – 1:35.904 8th 38 – Yamaha Endurance Moto38 – FRA – Yamaha YZF-R1 – G.Fastre – 1:36.116 9th 666 – Kawasaki Diablo 666 – GBR – Kawasaki ZX10R – M.Rohtlaan – 1:36.266 10th 4 – Yamaha X-One Team – ITA – Yamaha ZF-R1 – P.Tessari – 1:36.933