Can Öncü blitzed the Magny-Cours circuit record to take pole position in a red-flagged Superpole session, with championship leader Stefano Manzi second and home hero Lucas Mahias third to complete an all-Yamaha R9 front row in France.
The session wasn’t without its drama, with polesitter Öncü (Yamaha BLU CRU Evan Bros Racing) forced to watch on from the sidelines after an issue saw him pull up at the side of the track after setting his blistering 1’39.442 time to take provisional pole. However, with another rider suffering a technical problem moments later, the red flag came out bringing the session to a halt with Öncü a comfortable 0.221 seconds ahead of title rival Stefano Manzi (Pata Yamaha Ten Kate Racing).
Manzi had led the way by almost half a second in the morning’s practice session, but the Italian will start from the second spot after the late stoppage prevented him from trying to better Öncü’s time.
Lucas Mahias returns to the front row, 0.565 seconds off pole position, much to the joy of the GMT-94 Yamaha team at both his and the team’s home event.
Riding in place of the injured Aldi Satya Mahendra for Yamaha BLU CRU Evan Bros Racing, Alberto Surra impressed on his WorldSSP debut to secure a seventh placed starting position.
Returning to action after his Donington Park injury, Yuki Okamoto completed the day 25th for Pata Yamaha Ten Kate Racing. GMT-94’s Roberto Garcia was forced out of the Superpole session with a technical problem and will have to start from the back of the grid, while home-round wildcard rider Bartholemé Perrin will start 26th.
The weekend’s first race gets underway at 15:15 local time on Saturday.
Can Öncü (Yamaha BLU CRU Evan Bros Racing) – 1st – 1’39.442
“I am very happy, from free practice to Superpole the team did an incredible job and this is the result. We stayed calm and focused on improving the bike and we improved in a very good way. In Superpole, for the first half we spent time improving the bike and then pushed for a lap time and it was a very good lap time. At first I didn’t believe the time as compared to the morning it was a very big step! Tomorrow we have the race, so hopefully we can improve more and get a strong result.”
Posted on September 6, 2025 by Michael Le Pard
