Team Suzuki Press Office – September 16.
Suzuki Endurance Racing Team will start from second position at tomorrow’s opening round of the new 2016-2017 Endurance World Championship, the 80th Anniversary Bol d’Or 24-Hour race at Paul Ricard Circuit in France.
The 15-time and defending World Champions – Vincent Philippe, Anthony Delhalle and Etienne Masson – are less-than half-a-second off Pole as inclement weather overnight and during the morning stopped most of the teams improving their lap-times from yesterday’s initial practice and qualifying sessions.
Thursday, under warm and dry conditions, Delhalle set a best-lap of 1.58.512 on the SERT GSX-R1000 and leading his ses¬sion. Philippe posted a 1.59.387 and Masson a 1.59.812 lap-time. Today things did not improve with none of the riders posting better times; instead using the sessions to test various settings on their machine ready for 24 hours of gruelling racing.