Hinata Okada will start on pole position for the opening race of the penultimate round of the FIM Yamaha R3 BLU CRU World Cup at the Cremona Circuit, Italy.
The Japanese rider’s time of 1’45.825 in the Friday afternoon Superpole session saw him clinch pole position by just 0.005 seconds from championship contender Emanuele Pastore (Italy) with Angelo Mottola (Italy) just 0.083 second)s further back.
Leonardo Marques (Brazil) heads up the second row, ahead of series leader Xarly Mendez (Dominican Republic) and double winner last time out Riichi Takahira (Japan).
Austria’s Daniel Krabacher leads the third row in seventh ahead of Mauro Gomez (Spain) and Rintaro Takamoto (Japan).
After leading the morning’s Free Practice session, Chris Clark (USA) will start tenth on the fourth row, joined by Aymon Bocanegra (Brazil) and Salvatore Germano (Italy).
The first race gets underway at 10:20 CEST and can be watched live on the Yamaha Racing YouTube channel here.
Hinata Okada said: “I am quite surprised to be pole position because usually Superpole is not my strength! I think my best qualifying so far is sixth, so this is a big improvement! It makes me quite nervous for tomorrow’s first race, but I will give it everything to push for a strong result.”