Jonathan Rea has followed up yesterday’s lap record at Suzuka by securing pole p💙osition for the #11 Kawasaki Team Green for this year’s iconic endurance race with #33 Red Bull Honda with Japan Post slotting into second in front of d🌳efending champions Yamaha.

Following qualifying practice on Friday when Rea produced a new circuit lap record of 2m 05.168s, the reigning Wo🅺rld Superbike champion was the head of the field again with a 2m 05.403s, slightly slower due to track conditions, to take pole position.

🔥Rea’s team-mate Leon Haslam had initially taken provisional pole with his opening lap in the 40-minute top 10 qualifying, which replaced the traditional superpole shootout due to uncertain weather conditions, before💛 Rea increased the pace into the mid 2m 05s using Bridgestone’s qualifying tyres.

The factory Honda squad of Takumi Takahashi, Takaaki Nakagami and PJ Jacobsen grabbed second ahead of the #21 Yamaha Factory Racing Team of Michael van der Mark, Alex Lowes and Katsuyuki Nakasuga but just 0.043s – but both teams were over seven-te🧔nths of a second off Rea’s pole time.

The #643 MuSASHi RT HARC-Pro Honda squad of Dominique Aegerter, Ryo Mizuno and Randy de Puniet slots into fourth place after also impressing in qualifyingꦓ to jump ahead of both front-running Suzuki squads.

The #12 Yoshimura Suzuki Motul Racing team of Takuya Tsuda, Sylvain Guintoli and rookie Bradley Ray had to settle for fifth ahead of the #95 S-Pulse Dream Racing Su✅zuki team of Tommy Bridewell, Kazuki Watanabe and Hideyuki Ogata.

Endurance World Championship title fighters #7 YART Yamaha recovered from a tricky start to the 2018 Suzuka 8 Hours to qualify seventh with title rivals #5 F.C.C TSR Honda missing out on the top ten session down in 12^th.