The Yamaha Factory Racing Team made history last weekend, as they ended Honda’s domination of the Suzuka 8 Hour with a superb win – also the 10th in a row at the event for Bridgestone.
Looking to take a first win at the event since 1996, on the manufacturers 60th anniversary, Yamaha turned to some of their biggest stars including Tech 3 MotoGP duo Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro, as well as Katsuyuki Nakasuga to pilot the latest YZF-R1.
The race took place in full dry conditions, but a number of incidents, including a crash from former MotoGP star Casey Stoner on the Factory Honda saw safety cars come out 6 times in total. As a result, only 204 laps were completed by the leading teams, even though the pace was exceptionally fast. The quickest lap of the race, a 2’08.496 was set by Yamaha Factory Racing Team’s Nakasuga on lap 6.
Second place went to the F.C.C. TSR Honda team of Josh Hook and Dominic Aegerter, who also ran on Bridgestone. In total six of the top ten teams used tyres from the manufacturer who has an amazing record at the famous 8Tai.
The consistently sunny conditions and high ambient temperature resulted in track temperatures reaching a scorching 61°C, which was registered three hours into the race, before dropping to 38°C at the end of the eight hour contest. To ensure the riders could manage this large variance in track temperature with no loss of performance, Bridgestone developed a range of compounds using its MotoGP experience for the riders at this year’s Suzuka 8 Hours, and clearly this approach paid off.
Yamaha Factory Racing Team Manager Wataru Yoshikawa spoke of his joy following the 8Tai:
“I am very happy to have achieved Yamaha’s first Suzuka 8 Hours win in nineteen years and on behalf of the team, staff and riders I’d like to thanks Bridgestone for supporting us in this victory. This result is attributed to the cooperation between our team and Bridgestone to set up the bike and race strategy so that the tyre’s performance could be fully utilised. Once again, I am pleased to share this win with Bridgestone and hope we can continue to work together in future.”
Syu Ishibashi – Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, Responsible for Group Global Marketing
Strategy, Bridgestone Corporation congratulated the Yamaha squad:
“I would like to congratulate the Yamaha Factory Racing Team on their impressive victory at this year’s Suzuka 8 Hours, the first for Yamaha in nineteen years. Well done also to team R1 & Yamalube who won the Superstock class using our BATTLAX production tyres. Today we witnessed a great race which once again attracted a dedicated audience of fans despite the harsh weather. I am really glad that we could contribute to the winning team’s victory by supplying Bridgestone tyres with excellent performance in what were extreme conditions. Our tenth successive win as a tyre supplier at the Suzuka 8 Hours is a great source of honour for me. Finally, we would like to keep supporting this splendid race event and extend our record for consecutive victories.”
Shinji Aoki – Manager, Bridgestone Motorcycle Tyre Development Department reviewed the performance of the latest breed of Bridgestone 8Tai rubber:
“Congratulations to Yamaha on their first 8Tai victory in nineteen years! Everyone in the Yamaha Factory Racing Team worked very hard to achieve their goal and Bridgestone is proud to have supported them in this venture. This is a very challenging event and the team managed their tyre allocation very well. Bradley, Katsuyuki and Pol have a lot of experience with Bridgestone tyres and although the tyres we develop for the Suzuka 8 Hours are unique, they share the same excellent grip and consistency as our other race tyres and I believe this helped them extract maximum performance from their R1 throughout the whole race. Congratulations also to F.C.C. TSR Honda on their impressive second place. The race was run in extreme conditions and due to the numerous safety car periods, both of our teams on the podium utilised different strategies during the race. However, despite these challenges the strong and consistent performance of our tyres meant they could achieve excellent results.”
Smith, Espargaro and Bridgestone won’t have long to savour their victory, as it’s back to MotoGP next week….
