Saturday's race shaping up to be a thrillerThis morning's free practice session for the Oschersleben 8 Hours seems to presage a very close-run race on Saturday afternoon at Germany's Oschersleben circuit, close to the city of Magdeburg. After the Suzuka 8 Hours, the narrowest of margins separate the leaders in the provisional rankings and this fourth round of the FIM Endurance World Championship will be a defining moment in the battle for the title. After this first foray on to the track at Oschersleben, the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team (Vincent Philippe, Anthony Delhalle and Yukio Kagayama) are at the top of the timesheet, just ahead of the Monster Energy Yamaha YART (Igor Jerman, Steve Martin and Katsuyuki Nakasuga) and the BMW Motorrad France Team Thevent (Sébastien Gimbert, Damian Cudlin, Erwan Nigon). Right behind this trio are the Yamaha France GMT 94 Michelin Yamalube, who have signed Gwen Giabbani, formerly with Monster Energy Yamaha YART, to join David Checa and Kenny Foray, as Matthieu Lagrive is still convalescing from surgery on his elbow. Within the same second, the Honda TT Legends (Cameron Donald, John McGuinness, Jason O'Halloran) make up the Top 5. With the exception of the Monster Energy Yamaha YART, held back by two blank score sheets, all these teams are real contenders for the 2012 world title. The Qatar Endurance Racing Team (Anthony West, Nina Prinz, Nasser Al Malki), in sixth place after this free practice session, is leading the Superstock category just ahead of the Starteam 67 (Claude Lucas, Jonathan Hardt).The first qualifying practice session will take place this afternoon, and the second qualifiers on this 3'696 m track are scheduled for tomorrow mid-day.You can follow the race on Saturday from 14 h 00 (GMT +2) on FIM-LIVE.COM with the "LIVE TIMING" set up by Tag Heuer, and get regular live updates on TwitterFor the latest pics, visit www.flickr.com/photos/fim-live/
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