The first qualifying session of the Masters of Endurance 2009-2010 Season took place this past Sunday at Kyoto GP Long. The session marked the first official test of the new "Boothy chicane," designed to reconfigure the original KY3 oval chicane from a dangerous, unpredictable, and exploitable full-throttle kink into a 60mph 90-degree turn. Remarkably, nearly all drivers navigated the layout successfully, with only two teams' fast laps being invalidated by contact with poles. Compared to last year's tally, this is a marked improvement.

In GT1, as expected the XRRs were dominant. My3id Gaming's Hugo Luis took the provisional pole with a lap of 2:14.08, followed closely by F1RST Racing's Jesse Nieminen at 2:14.14. Phil Diaz of CoRe Racing took third with a 2:14.35. The highest-placed FZR in the first qualifying session was Adrian Suszynski's Conquest Racing machine, fifth of the nine session qualifiers with a 2:14.63. However, perennial favorites #low-racing have yet to take to the track in their FZR.

The GT2 grid was the polar opposite, with FZRs taking the top eight spots in the first session. Lado Gluscevic of new series entrant Team Sirius sits on the provisional pole with a 2:21.20, nearly three tenths of a second faster than Mark Bunby's second-quick time for Sonicrealms Racing. Third is Niki Djakovic of My3id Gaming, who was almost another half second off Bunby's time. The fastest XRR was driven by Ariel Chiodini of CoRe Racing, ninth with a lap of 2:22.90.

Q2 will take place this Friday the 9th starting at 19:00 UTC. Traditionally, the fastest times are set in this final session, as teams scramble for the best position possible.