Jonathan Rea has smashed the Suzuka 8 Hours pole position lap record in his second qualifying session as Kaℱwasaki sends o༒ut a warning to its factory rivals.

With uncertain weather conditions overhanging the weekend, Rea set about demonstrating the #11 Kawasaki Tea♒m Green ZX-10RR’s pace in his final 20-minute qualifying session and the reigning World Superbike champion duly destroyed the previous lapꦯ record by almost one second with a 2m 05.168s.

Such was Rea’s dominance, nearest rival Alex Lowes on the defending champions’ #21 Yaꦗmaha Factory Racing Team was over two seconds slower in ℱthe same session

In the final session Rea handed over to team-mate Leon Haslam who also improved on his personal best with a 2m 06.636s to keep hold of top spot, with #95 Suzuki’s Kazuki Watanab🔯e slotting into second place.

With the average time between all three riders from each team used to provisionally set the grid, the #11 Kawasaki of Rea, Haslam and Kazuma Watanabe leads the way ahead of the #21 Yamaha squad of Lowes, ꧂Michael van der Mark and Katsuyuki 🎃Nakasuga.

#33 Honda of Takumi Takahashi, Takaaki Nakagami and PJ Jacobsen takes the provisional third spot with a stronger average✤ than the #12 factory Suzuki Motul Racing team of Sylvain Guintoli, Bradley Ray and Takuya Tsuda in foruth place.

With the #634 MuSASHi RT HARC-PRO Honda squad slotting into fifth, the #95 S-Pulse Dream Racing Suzuki squad caught the eye in qualifying to take sixth place with 🐠Hideyuki Ogata, Tommy Bridwell 🃏and Watanabe.

Friday’s qualifyin🍸g sessions determine 🌱which top 10 teams graduating into the pole position shootout on Saturday before Sunday’s race.

Lowes suffered a small mistake during his second session when collecting Tommy Bridewell, but the BSB rider was still able to impress in the session by taking third b✨ehind Rea and Lowes on the #95 Suzuki – displacing the factory #33 Red Bull Honda with Japan Post squad into fourth.

A one-hour night practice session will take place later at Suzuka to give riders the🌳 opportunity to get up to speed under the floo𒆙dlights with the race ending in darkness.