Llosa Claims Pole in Tight Suzuka Qualifying

Ricardo Llosa continued his strong form after winning the last round in Zhuhai, China with securing the pole position for the GT-R WC race at the Suzuka Circuit.

The Spaniard would deny Frank Zimmer from getting his sixth pole of the season by setting a time that was less than four hundredths of a second faster than that set by the Australian. The factory Chevrolet driver would be the only driver to go into the One minute Fifty-One barrier in the twenty minute session, helping him secure his third pole position of the season in what would be the tightest session of the season so far. All thirty drivers who took part in the session were within 102% of the time set by Llosa on the 5.8 Kilometer circuit, with Kastazumo Nakaya in the Luxray Engineering Viper being only 1.8 seconds off the pace of the 2016 Co-Champion.

Locking out the second row of the grid would be both of the Gerald Pereria Lister Storms, who look to bounce back from a double retirement last time out in Zhuhai, China. Fabian Rei and Shane Sparks put in near-identical times in the session, but found themselves two tenths behind the first row starters, and two tenths in front of third row starters Stefan Kuntz and Denis van Walwijk. Behind van Walwijk would be Rafael Modena, putting in one of the best performances for the struggling Maserati MC12 for the season, he will be starting seventh on Sunday.

Eleven of the top twelve starters are manufacture entries, with Darren Older Jr. in the Commonwealth Chevrolet Corvette being the only non-manufacture team in that group, with him starting ninth. The only Manufacture entry not in the top twelve is Pieter Kickert in the second Rosenforth Pagani, who struggled to get clean air in the session. The farthest forward starting full time Independent entry is the Scuderia Belgio Ferrari 550 in thirteenth, with newly-crowned Independents Co-Champion Asim Adhikari starting alongside Gia van Dycke.