Second run for Muroya and this is fantastic! It's really on the pace of McLeod!
Beautiful! It's 54.933 and that's just +0.324 behind McLeod and enough for 2nd place!
The fans are delighted with that result and they show their appreciation!
Dolderer flies next and he's got it all to play for here in Japan if he wants to move ahead of Sonka in the standings
And it's 54.656 and he bumps Muroya down into 3rd as he sits just +0.047 behind McLeod in 2nd!
Wow! That was impressive and he doesn't need to do anything more as he'll get a favourable head to head match tomorrow
Second run for Dolderer – a run of two halves! Very strong but then off his lines and he deviates from the track! What happened?!
That's a DNF and Q1 will stand for Dolderer...
Final pilot to fly in Chiba Qualifying is current standings leader Martin Sonka, who was also fastest in FP4, setting the track record with 54.371
But can he repeat that and move ahead of McLeod to claim the Qualifying in Japan?
Q1 for Sonka and he's red on the split times, it's a convicing run but he's not on the pace
It's 54.928 clean and Sonka moves into 3rd place
Last run of the day here in Chiba – Sonka has his Q2 to try to improve here... but it's a done deal and he gets a DNF for exceeding maximum G! Not what any of us were expecting...
Sonka: "We can gain a lot at Gates 6 and 7 or spoil everything. Gate 3 is really challenging especially with the crowd line."
Muroya: "Our flight is quite solid and we are flying our own tactics. If we stick with the same plan tomorrow it should work well enough."
OFFICIAL CHIBA QUALIFYING RESULT:
MCLEOD
DOLDERER
SONKA
MUROYA
HALL
CHAMBLISS
GOULIAN
PODLUNSEK
VELARDE
IVANOFF
KOPFSTEIN
BRAGEOT
BOLTON
LE VOT
PRESS CONFERENCE COMING UP AT 1815 LOCAL TIME
And that's a wrap from Qualifying here in Chiba! Thanks for joining us and we'll be back again tomorrow for Race Day at 0400UTC.
Hello and welcome to Race Day from Chiba in Japan! It is hot here and we are looking forward to some sizzling action over Tokyo Bay!
The Round of 14 starts in just under 10 minutes!
Following a nail-biting Qualifying yesterday, which saw Canadian Pete McLeod fly to victory, here's how they pilots line up in the head to head heats
It's all eyes on home hero Yoshi Muroya though here in Japan – and after taking his maiden win here on home soil in 2016 hopes are high for a repeat performance!
Second run for Muroya and this is fantastic! It's really on the pace of McLeod!
