Jonathan Rea has smashed the Suzuka 8 Hours pole position lap record in his second ♚qualifying session as Kawasaki sends out a warning to its factory rivals.

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

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

In the final sessio🥂n 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 Watanabe slottiᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚng into second place.

With the average time between all three riders from each team used to provisionally set the g♑rid, the #11 Kawasaki o🃏f 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 Nakagꦆami 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 pꦰlace with Hideyuki Ogata, Tommy Bridwell and Watanabe.

Friday’s qualifying 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 sessi🌱🌠on by taking third behind 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 floodlights with the race ending in darkness.