BMW Motorrad France Team Thevent will start tomorrow's 8 Hours of Oschersleben race from second position on the Le Mans style grid, after Sébastien Gimbert, Erwan Nigon and Damian Cudlin posted an average lap time of 1'27.060 during today's final qualifying session.
With all three riders capable of lapping in the 1'26s bracket on the Michelin qualifying tyres, pole position was a realistic goal for the team today, but they opted to focus on finalising the set-up of the #BMW S1000RR for tomorrow's race, rather than going all out for the questionable advantage of starting from the front of the grid.
Yesterday it was Cudlin whose 20-minute qualifying session was sacrificed to assess different combinations of tyres and suspension settings on the bike, while today it was the turn of Gimbert to confirm the settings on race tyres ready for tomorrow.
Despite Gimbert not managing a single lap on qualifying tyres today, the BMW trio only missed out on pole position by the narrowest of margins, with SERT taking the top spot by less than two-tenths of a second on combined times.
Warm up for the 8 Hours of Oschersleben gets underway at 08.45 tomorrow morning, with the race scheduled to start at 13.00. Nigon will take the start for BMW Motorrad France Team Thevent and the forecast promises good weather for the duration of the race.
Damian Cudlin: Fastest Lap - 1'26.677 (Q2)
"I'm really happy with the progress we've made today, especially with the combination of tyres and suspension. Yesterday was a tough day to be honest, but we regrouped and worked together as a team to improve our position. Today we showed our potential and hopefully tomorrow we can achieve a good result and repay everyone in the team for their hard work."
Sébastien Gimbert: Fastest Lap - 1'27.990 (Q1)
"We changed a lot on the bike overnight, as a result of yesterday's qualifying sessions, so my job today was simply to confirm all the settings on race tyres before Erwan and Damian pushed for fast times on the qualifying tyres. In the past we've pushed for pole position only to struggle in the race, so this time we focussed more on race set-up, with positive results. We've made significant improvements with the bike in race trim since yesterday, which means we go into tomorrow's race with some confidence. But, as we've seen already this season, a lot can happen in eight hours of racing, so we'll see how we go."
Michael Bartholemy: Team Principal
"We had some issues yesterday, but the team and riders did a great job and put in a lot of hard work overnight to improve the bike ahead of the final qualifying sessions today. With so many changes on the bike we had to use Seb's 20-minute session today to confirm the settings on race tyres, which meant that we missed out on pole by the narrowest of margins, but it's the race set-up that's important. Erwan will take the start from second position on the grid tomorrow and we'll just have to see how the race develops. A finish is important, but if we are in a position to win then that's exactly what we'll be trying to do."
Communication team theevent - www.thevent.eu -