From a press release issued by FGSport Group:

Shinichi Itoh took provisional pole position on his FCC TSR Honda Fireblade just three minutes before the end of his final session, with a lap time of 2:10.895. Atsushi Watanabe on the Yoshimura Suzuki had dominated proceedings up to that point, having put in a 2:11.036 during the morning’s cooler sessions. Third fastest today was the No. 7 Seven Stars Honda of Toru Ukawa, fourth place went to the Harc Pro Honda, and fifth to the Kenz Motul Suzuki. Honda have taken seven of the top ten provisional grid positions.

Suzuki Castrol are the fastest of the permanent championship teams. Vincent Philippe is satisfied with the set-up the team has found: “The bike is okay for the race; we have just been making small adjustments. All I can do now is drink plenty of water and energy drinks.” Yamaha GMT94 are the second fastest permanent team. William Costes is not too concerned about the team’s qualifying performance: “We are half a second slower than Suzuki Castrol at the moment, but qualifying is not the race. This place is difficult; the heat, the tyres, the track.”

Yamaha Austria’s Mandy Kainz has not had an easy time in qualifying: “The Pirelli tyres don’t work as well when we use them again after they have been hot and then cooled down. This is a big problem for us; we need nine sets of tyres for the race so that only leaves one pair for qualifying.” Adding to the team’s worries, rider Igor Jerman needed to be taken to hospital to have a small particle of metal rinsed out of his eye; luckily there was no permanent damage. He returned to the circuit in the afternoon and improved his time by over 2.5 seconds, moving Yamaha Austria ahead of Yamaha Phase One.

Phase One also had problems during the first qualifying sessions, with an out-of-round tyre upsetting Sebastien Scarnato’s final run at a fast lap. The team chose to sit out the second qualifying sessions for Ellison and Rohtlaan, to save tyres. Scarnato went out in the final session of the day as the extra tyres he had been granted as third rider could not be used in the race. He was able to go 1.2 seconds a lap faster but could not match Jerman’s time.

Provisional Top Six Qualifying Postions

1st 778 – FCC TSR Zip-FM Racing Team – Honda CBR1000RR – Shi’chi Ito 2:10.895

2nd 12 – Yoshimura Suzuki – Suzuki GSX-R1000 – Atsushi Watanabe 2:11.036

3rd 7 – Seven Stars Honda – Honda CBR1000RRW – Toru Ukawa 2:11.179

4th 73 – Team Harc-Pro – Honda CBR1000RR – Yoshiteru Konishi 2:11.205

5th 8 – Kenz Motul Suzuki – Suzuki GSX-R1000 – Katsuaki Fujiwara 2:11.280

6th 21 – YSP Presto Racing – Yamaha YZF-R1 – Shinichi Nakatomi 2:11.292

The full provisional grid has yet to be confirmed…

Permanent World Endurance Championship Teams

3 – Suzuki Castrol – Suzuki GSX-R1000 – Vincent Philippe – 2:13.748

94 – Yamaha GMT94 – Yamaha YZF-R1 – David Checa – 2:14.389

07 – Yamaha Austria – Yamaha YZF-R1 – Igor Jerman – 2:15.161

1 – Yamaha Phase One Endurance –Yamaha YZF-R1 – Sebastien Scarnato – 2:16.637