Tetsuta Nagashima set a blistering time of 2m05.722s aboard the #33 factory HRC Fireblade, becoming the only rider to break the 2m06s barrier as he boosted Honda’s hopes of repeating its pole position from last year.
Former Moto3 racer Karel Hanika was Nagashima’s closest rival on the YART Yamaha in first qualifying at the Japanese Grand Prix venue, ending up just under three tenths down with a time of 2m06.009s.
The opening qualifying was split into three parts, with each rider getting 20 minutes in their respective colour-denominated session.
Honda drew first blood after Nagashima outpaced his YART counterpart Niccolo Canepa by nearly eight tenths in the ‘blue‘ session, before the Yamaha squad struck back to top both the ‘yellow’ and ‘red’ sessions.
YART’s Marvin Fritz edged out HRC rider Takumi Takahashi by just over a tenth in the second part of qualifying, before Hanika backed up his team-mate's pace by getting the better of Xavi Vierge in the final session.
A second three-part qualifying will be held on Saturday morning at Suzuka, with the average of each team’s fastest two riders determining who progresses to the Top 10 Trials shootout.
While HRC and YART featured at the front in all three sessions on Friday, other teams lacked the same level of consistency.
The Yoshimura Suzuki team, for instance, was third-fastest in the opening session with Gregg Black on board, but dropped to ninth in the final part of qualifying.
The FCC TSR Honda squad, that trails YART by one point in the EWC standings, also had a mixed day, finishing fifth, ninth and fourth across the three sessions.
To make matters worse, Alan Techer was involved in a collision with Josh Waters’ S Pulse Suzuki at the hairpin in the yellow session, with his Honda briefly catching fire.
That was just one among multiple incidents that led to a start/stop qualifying, with the red flag coming out four times during 60 minutes of running across the three sessions.
Other riders to crash during qualifying included Takafumi Kato (Honda Soyukai Tochigi Racing), Christian Napoli (Motobox Kremer Racing Yamaha), Shigenori Sakurayama (Team Nagano BMW), Ikuhiro Enokido (Toho Racing), Maiku Watanuki (Tone RT BMW) and Randy de Puniet (Kawasaki Webike Trickstar).
Despite de Puniet’s crash, the Webike Trickstar team led the Kawasaki contingent in the absence of a factory team, finishing 11th, 10th and 16th across the three sessions.
The works BMW Motorrad team enjoyed marginally better fortunes, setting the ninth, eighth and 15th-fastest times in the three sessions to put itself on the cusp of a possible Top 10 Trials entry.
