Ahmad Zamani Baharuddin registered the fifth fastest laptime in today’s intensely competitive first timed practice session in preparation for this weekend’s final round of the FIM Asia Road Racing Championship in Sepang.

Zamani who is celebrating his 28th birthday on Sunday, December 14th posted a 1min 9.574 seconds while defending champion Toshiyuki Hamaguchi clocked 1min 8.732 seconds to gain pole position, just eighth hundredth of a second faster. Team PETRONAS Sprinta teammates Suhadi Ali Rahmat and Mohd Syahnas Shahidan also registered equally good laptimes with a 1min 10.480 seconds and 1min 11.994 seconds respectively, occupying the 10th and 15th positions respectively.

Zamani commented, “We had expected the laptimes of the entire grid to be close to one another as this is the last race of the season and the final timed practice results clearly indicates the level of competition from everybody here. We tried different set-ups and approach during our outing today and the crew’s determination in providing us with the best set-up paid off. We will continue with a similar approach tomorrow and we are quite confident that we’ll see some new lap time.”

The Petaling Jaya-lad clocked a fourth fastest time of 1min 10.653s during the morning free practice session. He shed valuable seconds during the hour-long afternoon session and was well within Hamaguchi’s laptime.

Teammate Suhadi also impressed many when the former motocross champion shed half a second off his morning’s laptimes to clock 1min 10.480s. He said, “This side of the Sepang track (the north track) is really more technical and needs more precise handling of the bike. We’ve tried different setting throughout the day and the reward was well worth it. And the weather was just nice, hope it’ll continue like this till tomorrow. We’ll definitely give it one more push to gain a better starting position on raceday.”

Syahnas meanwhile, seemed to be the victim of the super competitive laptimes. “I’ve really tried my best but I guess it was still not good enough. We’ll be focusing on several new setup changes and hopefully by the end of the day, we will be rewarded with better lap time and position on the grid.”

Championship leader Toshiyuki Hamaguchi grabbed the provisional pole position with compatriot and teammate Makoto Inagaki securing the second spot with 1min 8.732s. Second in table standings Australian Cameron Donald rounded up the third best laptime with a 1min 9.093s while former 250cc Grand Prix winner Osamu Miyazaki snatch fourth ahead of Zamani. They will all re-convene tomorrow for the 2nd Timed Practice session to help decide the starting grid position for both of Sunday’s races.