24 Heures Motos – The n ° 11 Kawasaki flew over the 2010 24H Moto du Mans –

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The Kawasaki n ° 11 flew over the 24H Moto du Mans 2010

24 Heures Motos - The n ° 11 Kawasaki flew over the 2010 24H Moto du Mans -

Back on the strengths of this 33rd edition marked by the abandonment and the difficulties of several top teams … and especially the great comeback of Kawasaki which signs – with panache – its ninth victory at the 24H Moto du Mans !

Back on the strengths of this 33rd edition marked by the abandonment and the difficulties of several top teams … and especially the great comeback of Kawasaki which signs – with panache – its ninth victory at the 24H Moto du Mans !

A success which rewards the pugnacity of the team led by Gilles Stafler, eleven years after the last success of the Greens on the Bugatti circuit (1981, 1983, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 1999) !

Because after setting the best time in free practice, qualifying, Superpole (read) and absolute domination for almost the entire race, the No. 11 ZX-10R of the GSR team and led by Julien da Costa, Olivier Four and Gregory Leblanca crossed the finish line with no less than eleven laps ahead of his pursuers !

3:00 p.m.. The start is given under a generous sun and in front of 92,000 enthusiastic spectators. Vincent Philippe, riding the SERT Suzuki n ° 2, launches the test by grilling courtesy to Julien da Costa on the Kawasaki n ° 11, author of the Superpole.

Irredeemably, lap after lap, the Bisontin pilot widens a significant gap at the rate of half a second per lap (4.185 km), to get 20 seconds ahead of the Yamaha n ° 1. But suddenly the race changes in a quarter of an hour !

On the 51st lap, Guillaume Dietrich, who had relayed Vincent Philippe on Suzuki n ° 2, loses the front and falls! He returned to the pit and started again after ten minutes of repair, but was unable to accelerate and had to make a lap at idle speed…

Driving on the sidelines of the track, Dietrich regains the asphalt when several motorcycles reach the bottom: the Yamaha n ° 14 of the BK Maco Moto ridden by Victor Carrasco cannot avoid the impact and hits Dietrich violently from the rear. !

4:40 p.m.. The race is neutralized for 15 minutes. The two affected pilots are evacuated to the hospital of Le Mans, suffering from a broken rib and a "possible lesion of the lumbar spine" for Dietrich, and a "large hematoma in the thigh" for Carrasco…

More fear than harm, but for SERT, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, hopes of victory are flying away … definitely. "The first thing is the health of the driver," says Dominique Meliand, boss of SERT, relieved by the reassuring news which has just reached him. "Guillaume is not seriously injured, there is no need to be afraid. Well, he has a pain in his rib cage and a pain in his back and will be sent to Le Mans hospital as necessary. can not help but give up, the heart a little tight ", relativizes the big boss of SERT.

“The main thing is that Guillaume is doing well. This is what we hope for in such falls. The rest is the race: we will get back to work, the season is not over, there is has other races. I look forward to seeing you at the Bol d’Or in Nièvre next September ", announces Dominique Melliand.

Taking advantage of these racing facts, the Yamaha n ° 1 – reigning world champion – takes the lead after a little over an hour of racing: after 53 laps, the YART R1 is ahead of a little more than seven seconds the Kawasaki n ° 11, 2nd, and about fifteen seconds the Honda n ° 99 BMP Elf, 3rd.

After the first third of the race, six crews officially retired, including the # 63 Honda of the Michelin Power Research Team, which suffered a crash early in the race and then a fatal engine failure shortly before midnight..

02h00. The No.1 Yamaha from YART launches the offensive with lap times under 1’40 per lap, almost a second better than the No.11 Kawasaki still in the lead.

But the YZF R1, victim of overheating, must remain immobilized in the pits and lose two laps, the time to change the brakes and bleed the cooling system … Unhappy too, Fabrice Auger of the AM Moto Racing team He crashed heavily at the speed bump on Chemin aux Bœufs while he was making a superb ascent: the medical service took charge of the pilot, while the Suzuki n ° 110 remained on the edge of the circuit. Recorded with a fractured dorsal vertebra, the Reims pilot was immediately taken to Le Mans hospital, before being transferred to Reims (51).

At the same time, the No. 11 Kawasaki in the lead is in turn a big fright by going to the fault in the Dunlop corner during its 403rd race lap! Fortunately not serious, the incident nevertheless obliges the ZX-10R of the GSR team to return to the pit and cancels the advantage born of the opposing overheating….

Half an hour later, the Honda n ° 55 of National Motos in 3rd position caught fire during refueling! Sebastien Scarnato had just brought back the Honda CBR1000RR which caught fire following a malfunction of the derrick. The National Motos Honda team lost three laps as a result of this mishap, which allowed the Suzuki # 18 of Team 18 Sapeurs Pompiers to come back within 50 seconds of the third step of the provisional podium of these 33rd 24 Heures Motos.

After more than 270 laps, the Kawasaki n ° 11 has about thirty seconds ahead of the Yamaha n ° 1 in ambush. As the hours go by on the Bugatti circuit, the two leading motorcycles seem to be observing each other from a distance, awaiting the temperatures of the next few hours which could benefit one or the other of the protagonists, depending on their tires. (Pirelli for Kawasaki, Michelin for Yamaha).

"It’s very tight", tempers Gilles Stafler, team manager of Kawasaki n ° 11, "but for the moment everything is going well, for the pilots, the bike and the tires. We were able to manage and for this night , the cooler the track, the better off we will be! "

But the YART, with its experience, is far from admitting defeat despite a second alert when it stopped on the 462nd lap at 4:20 am: the Yamaha engine heats up abnormally and the mechanics do not seem very optimistic about the outcome. such an alert for the race of the Jerman-Martin-Giabbani trio … It was the Frenchman who set off again and completed laps in 1’40 and traced his pace to the Kawasaki of the leaders. Alas, the n ° 11 still took three laps ahead of the n ° 1…

At 2:27 am, Aprilia n ° 35 returns to the pit for what promises to be a major intervention: the mechanics indeed decide to change the gearbox. At 4:19 am, it’s done and Noale’s ball returns to the track … before returning to the pits again: the gearbox problems are obviously still not resolved and the team decides not to start again until the last hours of racing to see the checkered flag and reach the finish…

Same scenario for KTM n ° 39 which had many problems: the team manager decided to take the bike out of the pits in the last laps to finish the race. At 4:24 am, the n ° 95 of the QERT (Qatar Endurance Racing Team), which occupied the second place in the Superstock category behind the Suzuki n ° 50, returned to the pits! The mechanics work on the motorcycle and change the harness. Rachid Al Mannai leaves at 4:33 am in 11th place.

7:00 a.m. : Following a minor fall by Cedric Tangre on Suzuki n ° 72 at the Virage de la Chapelle, the junior Team’s bike was again forced to return to the pits, while its riders made a good comeback. The mechanics remove the gravel and change the fairing, which allows the Suzuki to start 20th at 7:24 a.m..

Always so swift, Matthieu Lagrive signs the lap record (1’37.943) on the handlebars of his Honda CBR1000RR n ° 99 of the BMP Elf 99 team at 7:05: despite all his misadventures, "Mamat" seems determined not to let go !

Troubling, this 33rd edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans will certainly have been: at 8:31 am, the n ° 78 Honda of the Honda BMR Moto 78 was at the pits for a gearbox problem and could not start again. Same sanction for the Yamaha n ° 33 of Team Endurance 33, which suffers – like all the Yamaha entered – from an engine overheating which will ultimately lead to its abandonment.

9h00: Also plagued by several technical issues during the race, the BMW n ° 17 finally set off again after a night in its pit: the team wanted to try to solve the electronic problems encountered during the evening, but Erwan Nigon nevertheless returned to the stand at the stroller at 9:43 a.m….

Badly rewarded for his efforts, Matthieu Lagrive fell at 9.28am: quickly back to the boxes, the Honda n ° 99 could set off again after a change of the right half-handlebars and exhaust. After 626 laps, the No. 11 Kawasaki of the GSR team is still in the lead ahead of the No. 1 Yamaha of the Yamaha Austria Racing Team and the No. 55 Honda of National Motos..

Shortly after 9:00 a.m., the race was neutralized for the second time for about twenty minutes on the 631st lap, in order to allow the track to be cleaned up following the minor fall of Alexandre Lagrive, Matthieu’s little brother..

On the ZX-10R n ° 11, Julien da Costa, Olivier Four and Gregory Leblanc are five laps ahead of Igor Jerman, Steve Martin and Gwen Giabbani on the R1 n ° 1 while Sebastien Scarnato, Emeric Jonchière and Sylvain Barrier at the handlebars of the CBR n ° 55 point at six laps of the YART, after a small problem of braking shortly after 8:00 a.m. and a start of fire during a refueling during the night.

The Kawasaki n ° 8 of Bolliger Switzerland led by Horst Saiger, Roman Stamm and Frederic Chabosseau took fourth place in the early morning, taking advantage of transmission and chain change problems of the Suzuki of Team 18 Sapeurs Pompiers of Stephane Molinier, David Brière and Jerôme Tangre. The No. 18 GSX-R held fourth place since the start of the evening. At 9:00 a.m., she moved back to seventh.

The Suzuki n ° 41 of the Rac 41 City Bike has maintained itself since the start of the race in the right peloton in the hands of Gregory Junod, Greg Black and Olivier Depoorter who also take advantage of the firefighters’ concerns to score fifth just ahead of the Yamaha France GMT 94, Bridgestone pavement.

After its multiple radiators breakage during the previous events, the official Yamaha of David Checa, Gregorio Lavilla and Kenny Foray was indeed this time the victim of a "split exhaust manifold" and was never able to mingle with the fight in the lead: a frustrating situation for the men of Christophe Guyot who have nevertheless been favorites on many editions…

The Top 10 Sunday morning is completed by the Suzuki RT Moto Virus of Frederic Jond, Eric Mizera and William Grare, stuck in this peloton since the start of the race. It is ahead of the Superstock group led by Suzuki Motors Events n ° 50 of Vincent Bocquet, Emilien Humeau and Gerald Muteau in front of the Suzuki Qatar Endurance Racing Team of Anthony Delhalle, Alex Cudlin and Rashid El Mannai. The Yamaha Team X-One, which held the third Superstock place, has just fallen and gives up the third step of the podium to the Suzuki TRT27 Bazar de la Becane.

In Superstock, the Suzuki Junior Team LMS has accumulated technical problems since the start of the race. A fall in the early morning delayed her again.

12h00. Kawasaki n ° 11 has 9 laps ahead of Yamaha n ° 1 and 14 over Suzuki n ° 41. In ambush at the foot of the podium is the Yamaha n ° 94 of the GMT, author of a formidable comeback after having almost occupied the last places of the classification at the beginning of the race..

At three hours from the finish, 36 teams remain in the running and 19 have abandoned.

3:00 p.m.. The Kawasaki n ° 11 of team Gilles Stafler Racing (GSR), in the hands of the French Julien da Costa, Olivier Four and Gregory Leblanc, wins before the reigning world champion, the Yamaha n ° 1 of the Yamaha Austria Racing Team ( YART) ridden by the Slovenian Igor Jerman, the Australian Steve Martin and the French Gwen Giabbani, and the Suzuki # 41 of the RAC 41-City Bike with the Swiss Gregory Junod, the French Greg Black and the Belgian Olivier Depoorter.

The GMT # 94 Yamaha failed at the foot of the podium in 4th place after brilliantly climbing 20 laps behind the leaders. In Superstock, the n ° 95 Suzuki of the Qatar Endurance Racing Team wins a superb victory: Anthony Delhalle, Alex Cudlin, and Rachid Al Mannai thus give the team holding the 2009 World Endurance Cup its first success at the 24 Hours Le Mans motorcycle !

A victory obtained at the expense of another Suzuki: the n ° 50 of the Bocquet-Humeau-Muteau trio of the Team Motor Event indeed led most of the race before a collision with the Honda n ° 55 of National Motos ruin all the hopes of this team which participated in its first performance in world endurance and which will finally finish second in the SST category, in 8th place in the general classification…

Third, the BMW n ° 67 – which also competed in its first 24 Heures Moto – confirms the good health of the German four-cylinder: driven by the Germano Swiss trio Florian Kresse, Udo Reichmann and Marc Wildensen, the S1000RR of the Colexon Racing team n indeed did not make up !

Finally in the Open, the Metiss n ° 45 driven by Christophe Michel, Cyril Huvier and Emmanuel Cheron and unique entered in its category finished in a superb 10th scratch place, thus rewarding the work carried out on this Suzuki equipped with an unconventional front axle..

The winners explain themselves

Julien da costa : "We have been working since the winter, and since this period, we have accumulated the tests so that the bike was already ready when we arrived here. We suffered a little at the start, the Suzuki n ° 2 was very fast but it was quickly eliminated. Then Yamaha had problems during the night at the same time as us which made it canceled. Then they had new problems while we kept our pace. wouldn’t say we had a boring race, but then it was about making sure we got to the finish line ".

Olivier Four : “With Four, we always win! (Laughs) I’m lucky to be in the right place at the right time. I still have to win the Bol d’Or and Le Mans in the same year. gonna twist everyone at the Bol d’Or this year. I had a fall a month and a half ago and had to deal with some aches and pains that remained, but I made sure not to handicap the ‘team".

Gregory Leblanc : "I thank Kawasaki for trusting me because I didn’t have a lot of endurance experience. It remains to be confirmed at the Bol d’Or".

LE JOURNAL MOTO DU NET with AFP and FIM – Photos Julien PATALONE

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