8 Hours of Slovakia Ring The Honda Endurance Racing team with riders: Randy de Puniet, Sébastien Gimbert and Yonny Hernandez will start the 8 Hours of Slovakia Ring; the third round of the 2018/2019 FIM Endurance World Championship, P4 on the grid after today’s Qualifying sessions ahead of Saturday’s race.
The first qualifying session got underway at 13:15 local time and was held in fully wet conditions. Both Gimbert and Hernandez topped their respective groups in P1, with de Puniet taking the runner-up position in the middle session for the yellow riders.
In the afternoon the rain got less and for the second session the sky cleared, but the track stayed fully wet for Gimbert’s turn. With a red flag just under five minutes into the session, it was resumed shortly after – just to be red flagged again with five minutes to go. Gimbert took the decision to change for a softer Dunlop wet rear tyre and went out again.
For de Puniet it was a matter of a drying track already and he decided to go for his last attempt on an intermediate rear tyre. The track dried out more when Hernandez jumped aboard the Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP2, but by the end it was too late to switch to a full slick set-up.
Honda Endurance Racing will start the 8 Hours of Slovakia Ring from fourth on the grid, handing the team another two points for the FIM Endurance World Championship. There will be no track action for EWC teams on Friday as the event at Slovakia is the first ever-double header with the World Touring Car Championship (WTCR), who have their practice sessions tomorrow.
The race will start this Saturday (11 May) at 12:00 o’clock local time (BST +1), with the chequered flag set to be waved at 20:00 the same day.
