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2011
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2007 SUZUKA 8 Hours - Japan 29th July
SUZUKI 8 HOUR SITE - YAMAHA 8 HOUR SITE SUZUKA 8 HOURS The end of hour one and once again Suzuki are aiming to own Honda's racetrack. Kagayama and Akiyoshi on the No.34 Yoshimura Suzuki have opened up a 12 second lead over HRC's No.11 pairing of Kiyonari and Toseland, with the FCC-TSR Zip-FM Honda No.778 of Teshima and Itoh in 3rd, the fastest team on track so far. Of the permanent teams, SERT are in 10th, YART 19th chased by Phase One in 21st and Bolliger 25th. 2nd HOUR - and something has happened to the big Honda challenge of Kiyonari and Toseland with the No.12 Honda now down in 68th place after problems on Lap 29. The two Yoshimura Suzukis are 1st and 3rd, split by the FCC No.778 Honda, with HRC's No.33 Honda of Okada and Checa in 4th, with these four on the lead lap. 5th currently is the top Yamaha No.81 of Norick Abe and Jamie Stauffer. SERT are also 1 lap down in 9th, YART 2 laps down in 19th with Phase One hot on their heels in 20th with Bolliger 23rd. 3rd HOUR - So far, Suzuki are
embarrassing Honda at the Honda-owned track, with the Yoshimura Suzukis one and
two. Checa and Okada in 3rd are nearly 2 minutes behind the leaders, with the
FCC Honda No.778 right with them in 4th. Yamaha's Jamie Stauffer and Norick Abe
are 30 seconds futher back in 5th. The FCC Eurosport team are holding 8th
(Heinz, I bet you're still sitting in the pit box in front of the fan :), SERT
are now 2 laps down and 10th with the Moriwaki Honda moving in front of them -
but further down, there's been problems for YART. 4th Hour - The Kagayama/Akiyoshi
pairing still lead on the No 34 Yoshimura Suzuki but Okada and Checa are
fighting back with the HRC No.33 Honda, now 1 minute 50secs back with the FCC
No.778 Honda 3rd, pushing in front of the other Yoshi Suzuki No.12. The battle
now seems to be just these four, the Yamaha of Stauffer and Abe is still 5th but
two laps down. The Moriwaki Honda is now up to 8th, in front of FCC Eurosport
9th and SERT still 10th. Phase One 17th, Bolliger 19th.
5th HOUR - Still the same top five but the gaps in some cases are stretching...the Yoshimura Suzuki No.34 ( GO GO Yukio!) now leading by over 2 minutes from HRC Honda No.33 with the FCC Zip-FM Honda No.778 18 seconds behind them and only the top three on the same lap...no change for the others but Yamaha Austria are up to 50th. 6th HOUR - The gap at the front has gone up 2 seconds...not a lot, but it shows that despite everything they can do, the HRC Honda of Checa and Okada just can't peg back the No.34 Yoshimura Honda, both bikes now one lap ahead of the rest. Again, the top 5 are still the same. It's been pointed out that the gap between 1st and 2nd means that the leaders can see the 2nd placed Honda on the straight...and it's got to be a real motivator, along with the possibility of breaking Honda's 11-year monopoly on the 30th anniversary of the Suzuka 8 Hour race...the last time a Suzuki won was in 1983 with Belgian riders Herve Moineau and Richard Hubin... FINISH - It's about time that "Go Go" Yukio won Suzuka...and after 24 years, it's well past time that Suzuki won this race with their seminal GSXR1000. Moineau and Hubin won with the GS1000 and it's apt that yet another awesome engineering achievement by Suzuki has stolen the win from Honda. On top of that, all congratulations go to Yoshimura, taking the win on not only the 30th anniversary of the race but the 30th anniversary of that inaugural win by Wes Cooley and Mike Balwin on a...Yoshimura Suzuki. And all three wins that Suzuki have had here (Wes Cooley and Graeme Crosby in 1980) have been Yoshimura Suzukis. On his third lap Shinichi Itoh on the Honda FCC TSR 778, winner of the 2006 Suzuka 8 Hours, set a fastest lap of 2'09.227. From the start a head-to-head battle took place between Yukio Kagayama on the Suzuki Yoshimura 34 and Ryuichi Kiyonari on the Honda HRC 11. Thanks to his better control at the first passing point, Kagayama forged ahead little by little and the Suzuki 34 then maintained its command over the full eight hours. The second place of the Honda HRC 33 of Okada and Checa was well earned after they were forced to undertake a 'stop and go' penalty following a premature start. The Honda 33 was in only ninth position an hour into the race. After having moved back to the head of the bunch, the pair fervently defended their second place in front of the Honda FCC TSR 778.“This was a great experience. Even if I am a bit tired, I am ready to return if I get asked again by a strong team", said Carlos Checa, who was riding in his first ever Suzuka 8 Hours. Some of the pre-race favourites were surprised by the speed at the beginning of the race. The first victim was Takashi Yasuda on the Honda Kyubo Harc-Pro 73. Starting in sixth position, he fell half an hour into the race and the Honda 73 ended up at the back of the pack, finally finishing in 24th. Several minutes later the Yamaha 21 crashed while in eighth. It retook to the track an hour later in 68th place but another fall by Nobuyuki Osaki ended the team's chances of a podium finish. Another favourite who fell victim to the beginning of the race was the Honda HRC 11, second behind the Suzuki Yoshimura 34. James Toseland's fall on his first lap also ended their podium hopes and the official Honda 11 did not return to the track at the home of HRC. The other Suzuki Yoshimura 12 of Watanabe and Sakai finished in the final podium spot in front of the Honda Moriwaki 19 of Yamaguchi and Camier. Faced with an armada of official and semi-official Japanese machines in the Open category (with the exception of the Honda FCC TSR 778 in the Superbike class), the permanent teams did not perform at their best. The leading result came from Suzuki Endurance Racing Team. Vincent Philippe, Matthieu Lagrive and Julien Da Costa finished in seventh overall and second in the Superbike class. SERT claim 24 points and have consolidated their lead in the QMMF Endurance FIM World Championship. The Honda FCC TSR Eurosport Benelux, ridden by Satoru Iwata and Yoshiyuki Sugai, had an ongoing battle with SERT and eventually finished in eighth. The top 25 in the Superbike class included several of the permanent teams. Yamaha Phase One Endurance finished a respectable 15th, taking the 16 points to put them fourth overall in the classifications. Bolliger Team Switzerland finished in 18th, Diablo 666 Bolliger in 21st, and RMT 21 Racing in 24th. The leading machine in the Superproduction class, Endurance Moto 38, finished in 29th ahead of Maco Moto who were 35th. In the Superstock class, the best performance came from Team LTG 57. Without Mickael Lalevée who was injured in the warm-up, Anthony Dos Santos and Amaury Baratin finished the eight hours in 45th position on their Yamaha. There were mixed fortunes for the other permanent teams. Suzuki Sweden had braking problems and finished in 34th. Yamaha Austria were within the top twenty at the beginning of the race before of an engine overheating problem saw them fall back more than 30 places - Igor Jerman, Damian Cudlin and Steve Martin ultimately finished in 36th. Amadeus X-One lost time due to problems with their fuel tank and finished in 39th just ahead of Team Zone Rouge Yamaha. The final permanent team to register a point at Suzuka, RT Racing Team & Moto Virus, finished in 46th after a fall. Finally the claim for least successful race goes to the Honda Sakurai 2. In sixth position one lap from the end, the Honda ridden by Chojun Kameya and Russell Holland returned to the pits without passing the chequered flag and were disqualified. (The bike ran out of petrol on the last lap - but the race had finished after the bike was pushed back to the pits for fuel and therefore the Team Sakurai Honda could not get back on the track to pass the chequered flag.)
SUZUKI PRESS RELEASE
Yukio Kagayama: "My strategy for my first stint was to pull away and I achieved this. My partner Akiyoshi is my long time friend and I know his potential very well. The Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 is awesome and the Bridgestone tyres were excellent. I would like to thank my staff and team, Yoshimura and Suzuki." Yohei Kato - Yoshimura Suzuki Team Manager: "We believed Kagayama and Akiyoshi could win! They made very good lap times all through the 216 laps. I told Yukio before start that I wanted him to holeshot and the top position in a first lap - and he achieved it. I'm very happy and thanks to my staff and Suzuki plus all our sponsors. We finally beat a very strong HRC team. I want to dedicate this victory to my late grandfather, Pops Yoshimura." Dominique Meliand - SERT Team Manager: "We ran a very consistent pace and kept strong top10 spot all through the race. The most important thing is we got strong points and finished second fastest in the permanent teams." Vincent Philippe: "We only had two hours test at Suzuka before race but the track and temperature was quite different from today. Our pace was slower than we expected but we finished the race with only a small crash by Julian Da Costa without serious damage. Suzuka is very strange and difficult track but I love it - and I love the Suzuka 8 Hours." RESULT
POINT SCORING TEAMS
STARTING GRID
Carlos Checa stole the headlines in Saturday afternoon's“Special Stage”qualifying session at Suzuka, with a lap of 2'07.587 on the Honda HRC 33. Behind the Honda is the Yamaha Racing 21 team of Nobuyuki Osaki and Katsuyuki Nakasuga (2’07.806) and the Suzuki Yoshimura with Jomo 34 team of Kosuke Akiyoshi and Yukio Kagayama (2'07.969). This session - like Superpole - featured the two riders of the ten fastest teams in yesterday's qualifying session who went head-to-head on one flying lap against the clock. The best times in the 'Special Stage' determined the order of the top ten machines on the starting grid for the 'Coca Cola Zero' Suzuka 8 Hours. This reduced the advantage of the other Honda HRC 11 of Ryuichi Kiyonari and James Toseland who qualified fastest in yesterday's session but could only finish in fourth in today's 'Special Stage'with a lap of 2'08.035. Carlos Checa remained humble in victory. "This is a very special and important moment, but right now we must focus on the race tomorrow which will be something completely new for me. There are many things to learn ahead of tomorrow – the tires, the philosophy of the race track, the stopping areas. I hope tomorrow I can give my best without making any major errors". Today's Special Stage allowed the Honda FCC TSR 778 of Yusuka Teshima and Shinichi Itoh to move up five places on the starting grid for tomorrow. Itoh's flying lap of 2'08.449 was more than one second faster than the team's best qualifying lap on Friday. FCC TSR 778, winner of the 2006 Suzuka 8 Hours, finds itself surrounded by a group of teams all looking for victory at Suzuka in 2007.
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