Conditions were cool and wet for the morning’s practice session, which was interrupted with a red flag twenty minutes in after another rider left oil on the track. Despite this brief break, Kaito Toba and Khairul Idham Pawi remained focused on the task at hand, making good progress as they adapted their CBR600RR machines to the Magny-Cours circuit, one at which neither of them has raced before. The Japanese rider in particular gradually worked his way up the timesheets, with a best time of 1’41.800 ultimately positioning Kaito fourteenth at the session’s end, a little over a second from the session leader. A fastest time of 1’43.136 for team-mate Khairul saw the Malaysian place twenty-sixth as this important practice phase drew to a close. 

Later in the day, the riders hoped to make the most of the Superpole qualifying session. Unfortunately, the session got off to the worst possible start for Pawi, who suffered a violent crash through Turn 1 in the first few minutes and was unable to set a qualifying time as a result. A red flag brought the session to a momentary halt while the bike, which sustained significant damage, was removed from the track. Pawi was taken to the medical centre, where doctors diagnosed a minimal head injury. The rider will be reassessed tomorrow morning before warm-up. 

When the qualifying session resumed, and with just under 40 minutes in which to set a fast time, Toba made a determined start. Almost immediately into the top fifteen, Kaito continued to work hard and improve on his best reference lap by lap.  Despite an innocuous crash in the final couple of minutes, the Japanese rider set a fastest time of 1’41.449 to qualify nineteenth for the weekend’s races. 

Kaito Toba 

“We made a good start to the weekend but unfortunately, I failed to duck under 1’41, which was my target in Superpole. So a bit disappointing but we’ve shown that we are improving; I was top three through sector one today so quite fast there. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow. I’d like to finish top ten if possible but I need to find a way to be quick right off the line, as the first three laps or so are key if we want a strong result.” 

Khairul Idham Pawi 

“I’m disappointed with how Superpole went today. I crashed at the start and so couldn’t set any lap time at all. Physically I’m more or less OK and just have some pain in my arm and my leg, but I hope that will already feel a bit better tomorrow. Tomorrow will be tough but I’ll try to do my best.”