2024EWC 3rd Round Suzuka 8Hours Qualifying July 19th Report

2024年7月20日 14:51

2024/07/19

First time at Suzuka for Team Étoile, yet qualified 2nd in SST Class! Ready for the final.

Suzuka 8Hours, the third round of FIM Endurance World Championship (EWC) for the 2024 season has finally begun. It is indeed a "home" race for Team Étoile, and we ended the qualifying session in 19th overall, 2nd in SST class.

In the morning we had a practice session for 2 hours, 2 qualifying sessions in the afternoon, and a night practice session in the evening.
Hikari Okubo and Roberto Rolfo spent the morning practice session for the final checkup of our BMW M1000RR.

Although the bike was not set up to perfection for the qualifying spec tires, Roberto did 2 min 11.915 sec, Hikari did 2 min 8.349 sec, and Yudai did 2 min 8.189 sec. Following the rule book, the average lap time of the top 2 riders becomes 2 min 8.349 sec, which had put Team Étoile in 2nd in SST class. Not as well of a result as the pole position like we got in the last round at Spa, but the consistency is there for sure.

As we were qualified 19th overall, Team Étoile will not participate in the famous "Top10 trial", which means the pit walk and the free practice session will be the only event in front of the crowd for Team Étoile tomorrow.

Rider Yudai Kamei

"I saw our lap time was not so good in the morning practice session because of the heat, but I was not so worried after seeing a similar result on other teams. In the qualifying, the heat was less severe. I could push hard to a lap of 2min 8.189sec and am happy about it."

"Fastest lap of SST class was 2min 7.9sec. We were so close, but surely not a bad result for the first year, and how we could test even further for the final race was a good outcome of today. The race won't be easy for sure, but we are confident and will try our best."

Rider Hikari Okubo

"In the morning practice session, we changed the setting on the front for the better long-run pace, which worked out well. During the qualifying, I had a small mistake which costed a few tenth, but my teammate recovered it with his 2min 8.189 sec lap time. As a result we are starting tomorrow's race from 2nd in SST class, and I'm happy about that."

"Our expected average pace for the race is good. I think we just need to stay focused and do what we can, no need to do anything special for the potential win. Tomorrow we will test the setting of our bike even further to prepare for the race. Over all today was very positive."

Rider Roberto Rolfo

"In the morning we tested different settings on the bike. Hikari and I discussed and worked together, and the overall feeling of the bike improved a lot. Now the bike works well for the race pace."

"The first qualifying session was good. I did a mistake in the second qualifying session, but the feeling of the bike was good even with a used tire. Today the team worked together really well."

Team Owner Takashi Ichikawa

"For Team Étoile it is the first time to race at Suzuka, so I'm happy with our qualifying result (2nd in SST Class). Now we are focused to carry this momentum to the race."

"During the night practice session, we had a mechanical issue on our bike which led to a crash. Luckily the damage was minimum, and even luckier that we had this issue today rather than during the race. We analyzed the issue and now know its root cause. We are implementing the fix and will test it tomorrow during the last practice session."

EWC 2024 Season Race Schedule

1st round: Le Man 24 hours (France, Le Man): Aprl 18th ~ 21st
2nd round: Spa 8 hours (Belgium, Spa Francorchamps): June 6th ~ 8th
3rd round: Coca Cola Suzuka 8 hours (Japan, Suzuka): July 18th ~ 21st
4th round: Boldor 24 hours (France, Paul Ricard Circuit ): Sept 12th ~ 15th

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