Le Mans 24 Hour Qualifying

Paul Carruthers | April 16, 2010

Team GSR Kawasaki earned provisional pole position for this weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans with Julien da Costa, Olivier Four and Gregory Leblanc ride the teams ZX10 to to the top spot today in France.The Suzuki Endurance Racing Team of Vincent Philippe, Guillaume Dietrich and Freddy Foray ended up second with the two factory teams ahead of the privateer Honda BMW Elf99 CBR1000RR of Matthieu Lagrive, former AMA racer Damian Cudlin (pictured) and Werner Daemen. Then came the Honda National Motos team of Sébastien Scarnato, Emeric Jonchière and Sylvain Barrier and the Honda Michelin Power Research Team of William Costes, Hugo Marchand and Josep Monge.Yamaha Austria Racing Team ended up sixth in the session that will see the top 20 teams take part in a Superpole session this afternoon.The YART ended up ahead of the BMW Michelin, the Suzuki RAC 41 City Bike and the Suzuki of Junior Team LMS, the first of the Superstock machine machines.Jason Pridmore’s Yamaha BK Maco Moto Racing team ended up 16th, but will be forced to go into Superpole and the race without one of its riders after Dani Ribalta crashed the team’s R1 and suffered a broken arm.Like World Superbike, the Superpole for the World Endurance Series will be open to the fastest 20 teams. Those teams vie for 16 spots from Superpole 1, then it whittles down through Superpole 2 to the fastest eight riders. Each team can only enter one rider in Superpole and only set of tires is allowed for the entire session.