From a press release issued by FGSport Group:

Free Practice

The number 12 Yoshimura Suzuki of Yukio Kagayama and Atsushi Watanabe posted the fastest time during the first free practice sessions, with a lap time of 2:10.888. The circuit has been modified since last year (changes to the Degner curve and the chicane) so lap times cannot be compared with previous years.

Second fastest was the No.778 FCC-TSR Honda Fireblade of Takeshi Tsujimura and Shinichi Itoh (2:11.203) and third fastest was the No.7 Seven Stars Honda of Toru Ukawa and Hitoyasu Izutsu (2:11.230).

Fastest of the permanent teams was Suzuki Castrol of Phillipe, Four and Giles in 26th place with a time of 2:14.941. Costes, Gimbert and Checa for Yamaha GMT94 were just 0.842 seconds behind in 27th place; a real battle looks set to begin between these two teams during qualifying. Yamaha Phase One Endurance and Yamaha Austria were even closer in 39th and 40th place, with just 0.028 seconds separating the two.

Tyre Control

Teams racing at Suzuka are limited to a maximum of ten front and ten rear tyres for the timed qualifying sessions and the race. The permanent championship teams are all using three riders so they have been granted an allowance of an additional two pairs of tyres, but these can only be used by the third rider during qualifying. Finally, the teams who make it through to Superpole on Saturday will be allowed two more tyre pairs just for the special stage laps.

All of this means that teams must carefully manage their tyre use and strategy – they will not have enough tyres to use special “qualifiers”, and there is very little scope for experimentation with different tyre compounds during qualifying; of the ten tyres available, at least eight or nine pairs will be needed for the race itself.

Championship Points

Only teams entered in the Superbike, SuperProduction and Stocksport classes will score World Endurance Championship points at Suzuka. Many of the local ‘wildcard’ entries are running in the Japanese Superbike class or one of the two Formula Xtreme classes which are not eligible for points.