The best way to restart. On Saturday 21st April, at 15:00 local time, we will see the start of 2018 24 Heures Motos. The iconic 24 Hours race scheduled at Le Mans will be the second 2017/2018 FIM Endurance World Championship Round and 2018 edition will represent the 41st one of this historic event. Since 1978, the race taking place at Circuit Bugatti has represented one of the most successful Endurance races, with big crowds watching the race from the grandstands or lawns surrounding the track. This year’s 24 Heures Motos will be an unforgettable event and it may be also crucial for the championship: after the win and the 60 points collected last September at Bol d’Or, GMT94 Yamaha wants to escape…
GMT94 YAMAHA AIMS FOR REPEAT – Yes, because the reigning Champions could consolidate their leading position in the standings. As well as at Bol d’Or, the maximum amount of points available is 60 (40 for the winners, 10 after the first 8 hours and 10 after the 16th hour) and GMT94 will try to defend not just the first place in championship standings, but also the cup won last year. According to the motto “Never change a winning team“, Christophe Guyot’s squad will participate with David Checa, Mike Di Meglio (who left World Supersport to focus just on FIM EWC) and Niccolò Canepa.
THE OPPONENTS – For the win, GMT94 Yamaha will have to fight with many competitive opponents. S.E.R.T. Suzuki, which will welcome back Dominique Meliand, has further developed the new GSX-R 1000 during the winter and now they want to win with the resigned trio formed by Vincent Philippe, Etienne Masson and Gregg Black. Big motivation also for YART Yamaha, which will line up a Yamaha R1 which is very similar to the one winning last year’s Suzuka 8 Hours, with Bridgestone tyres and Broc Parkes, Marvin Fritz and the new entry Takuya Fujita as riders. After the bitter retirement at Bol d’Or after just 34 minutes, SRC Kawasaki will try to rise again with Randy De Puniet, Jérémy Guarnoni and Mathieu Gines, as well as many BMW Motorrad teams: Volpker NRT48 (Kenny Foray, Peter Hickman, Stefan Kerschbaumer and Lucy Glockner), Penz13 (Danny Webb and, from BSB, Michael Laverty e Christian Iddon), Tecmas (Julien Da Costa, Camille Hedelin and David Perret) and the renewed Mercury Racing, previously known as BMW CSEU (Karel Hanika, Sylvain Barrier, Jakub Smrz and Matej Smrz). Also a Honda rescue is expected: F.C.C. TSR with the “old” Fireblade (Freddy Foray, Josh Hook and Alan Techer) and Honda Endurance Racing with the new one (Sebastien Gimbert, Gregory Leblanc and Erwan Nigon).