Suzuka 8H – Yamaha wins the 2015 Suzuka 8 Hours – Yamaha’s first victory in 19 years!

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Yamaha wins the 2015 Suzuka 8 Hours

Suzuka 8H - Yamaha wins the 2015 Suzuka 8 Hours - Yamaha's first victory in 19 years!

Qualified on Saturday from pole position, the R1 of the Yamaha Factory Racing Team won the prestigious Suzuka 8 Hours race yesterday in front of the F.C.C. TSR Honda and the Kagayama Suzuki team. Fourth, SERT takes off in the championship.

Yamaha’s first victory in 19 years !

Author of a new lap record at Suzuka in the Endurance category during the Superpole (2’06000), Pol Espargaro did not hide his joy on Saturday night: "achieving a time on a lap is not easy. I’m all the more happy that my teammates Bradley Smith and Katsuyuki Nakasuga also had excellent times.".

Sunday at 11:30 am, the R1 n ° 21 of the Yamaha factory team therefore took the start of the 38th race of the 8 Hours of Suzuka with the status of favorite for the victory … and a nice target on its backrest, which was aimed in particular Honda Musashi RT Harc-Pro team, winner of the last two editions (read and) !

Entered by the official Honda team, Casey Stoner was making his first stint and had just taken control of the race, precisely, when his Fireblade suddenly remained wide open when approaching the hairpin (see)…

"I didn’t have time to get the clutch back on and arrived with too much speed", said the two-time MotoGP champion,"I raised the motorbike and tried to slow it down further, but I was heading for the wall … so I decided to lay it down and hit the barrier".

The shock was unfortunately much more violent than expected: Casey stood up with difficulty – and a fractured shin and shoulder blade! – while his Honda, too broken to set off again, could not reach the pits where Michael van den Mark (registered in World Superbike) and Takumi Takahashi were waiting for him…

Deprived of a sixth consecutive success, the CBR1000RR still climbed to the second step of the podium thanks to the FCC TSR Honda crew made up of the Australian Josh Hook, the Swiss Dominique Aegerter (Moto2) and the British Kyle Smith ( World Supersport).

Victorious in 2012 (read) with Jonathan Rea (Kousuke Akiyoshi and Tadayuki Okada), the Honda n ° 778 is the only bike to have completed the same number of laps as the factory R1: 204! The three teams completing the Top 5 were respectively one, two and three laps behind the leader.

In third place in the 2015 Suzuka 8 Hours, we find a third different bike with the GSX-R1000 of Team Kagayama driven by Yukio Kagayama – who did you expect? – and his two great friends: the flamboyant Ryuichi Kiyonari (English Superbike) and the fabulous Noriyuki Haga.

Yesterday, the Japanese n ° 41 reached the podium 19 years after having climbed there – at the very top – in the company of the American Colin Edwards. The two legendary World Superbike riders – and big names in MotoGP – then rode the official Yamaha YZF750…

Since then, Yamaha and its R1s had always been beaten by their compatriots Honda Fireblade, Kawasaki Ninja or Suzuki "Gex"! Something to make the two teammates of the French MotoGP Tech3 team and their new friend Katsuyuki Nakasuga particularly proud !

Espargaro and Smith are all the more so since the victory in 2002 of and repeat offender Colin Edwards – winner in 2001 with Valentino Rossi too! – on the Honda VTR1000SP, no active MotoGP rider had won the Japanese endurance event.

"I feel like I’m on a little cloud !"Pol Espargaro exclaimed last night."This team is like a big family and I made some friends there. I gave myself 200% and for a first participation in this race, what we are experiencing is fantastic".

"However, I must apologize to the team because I got a "stop and go" for overtaking under the yellow flag, but we made up for the lost time.", added the at the end of a race punctuated by six interventions of" pace cars " !

"It’s very special"Bradley Smith insisted,"it’s Yamaha’s 60th anniversary and they are leading the MotoGP championship, but they also had the Suzuka 8H in their sights and I’m happy that we were able to demonstrate the true potential of this bike and give them this victory that ‘they have deserved it for 19 years".

Tenth at the start of the race, the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team (SERT) finally finished fourth behind the three "local" teams. The Le Mans team benefits from this victory – against the permanent teams! – to consolidate its leading position in the endurance world championship.

"We are super happy !", rejoiced Sunday evening the boss of SERT, Dominique Meliand."We managed the race well. The end was very tense and we had to take some risks in terms of refueling. But we weren’t wrong !".

Unlike the # 30 Suzuki, the # 94 GMT Yamaha was less happy at the end of the race. The last exit from the "pace car" came at the worst time – for her! – and made him lose two places…

"We gave everything, we have no regrets", nevertheless retained the most French of the Spanish pilots, David Checa, after the 8 hours of racing."Three years ago, we were the lucky ones who ended up on the podium".

"We are of course frustrated because we believed to finish first of the permanent teams", analyzed its boss, Christophe Guyot."We have to accept it and retain the excellent race of the pilots, the always magical team of mechanics in the race and a super efficient Yamaha R1.".

"Thanks also to Dunlop for their work and commitment with us", underlined Mister GMT94:"we can be satisfied. The performance of the race tires was able to erase the frustration of not having been able to have qualifying tires that would have placed us better on the grid.".

Thanks to their 16 Japanese points, GMT94 (52 points in total) climbed to second place in the world championship, 29 points behind SERT (81). Twelfth in this second EWC 2015 event, Team Kawasaki Bolliger Switzerland is in third position with 50 points.

The next points distribution will take place in less than a month in Germany with the Oschersleben 8 Hours scheduled for August 22. To follow naturally on MNC: stay connected !

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