It’s been a little while coming, but the Yamaha Austria Racing Team finally have their first FIM Endurance World Championship win on Bridgestone!
Some serious bad luck put pay to their 2016/17 title challenge, despite showing so much promise and leading the majority of races for large periods, and this year hasn’t exactly been kind to the team so far either.
However, Broc Parkes, Marvin Fritz and Max Neukirchner put in a superb performance at last weekend’s 8 Hours of Slovakiaring to take a well deserved win on their Bridgestone V02 Racing Slicks. Victory in Slovakia was made even more difficult for YART, as they were without any electronics on the bike from the very start of the race.
The factory squad started second on the grid, but were confident after going fastest during the warm-up with a 2’04.314 lap. The Bridgestone shod FCC TSR Honda squad, fresh from their 24 Hour of Le Mans win, held pole position.
By the end of the first hour, Fritz held the lead for YART, and more than a quarter of the way in they held a 4.7 second advantage over fellow Bridgestone runners FCC TSR Honda, with Parkes soon extending that to 12 seconds at the three hour mark.
The safety car came out shortly before the five hour mark, with two cars separating YART from fellow factory Yamaha squad GMT94.
Things were still very close going into the final hour of racing, with just 23 seconds separating the teams after 7 hours of intense action.
As the chequered flag fell, a wave of relief washed over the YART garage as they held off the strong GMT94 challenge to take the win.
Comfortably holding on to third place, FCC TSR Honda hold a single point advantage over GMT94 which sees them lead the series on Bridgestone as they prepare for the penultimate race at Oschersleben next month.
You can find out more about the off-the-shelf Battlax V02 Racing Slick here.
