suzuka 8 hours – Michmutters
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Suzuka 8 Hours: How did Jonathan Rea fare in Japan? | World Superbikes

The six-time WorldSBK Champion – who scored his second Suzuka 8 Hours victory and first in Kawasaki colors during the last running of the event in 2019 – came into the event as favorite alongside regular KRT counterpart Alex Lowes and former team-mate Leon Haslam, the trio having amassed eight wins at the iconic event over the years.

However, it was soundly out-performed by HRC Honda, which showed an unpenetrable level of competitiveness with its CBR1000RR-R Fireblade throughout the weekend in the hands of Takumi Takahashi, rookie Tetsuta Nagashima and WorldSBK regular Iker Lecuona.

With race starter Haslam losing ten seconds to Takahashi during the opening stint, Rea took on Nagashima for the second stint, but while the ex-Moto2 rider was making his debut at both the event and on a Superbike, he couldn’t make in- roads, which coupled to a longer stop swelled the margin to 21secs.

However, KRT’s race suffered its first major blow during the third stint when Lowes was caught out by the format of using two different Safety Cars during caution periods, with Lecuona being picked up by one and the Kawasaki man bottled up behind the other. With the Safety Cars touring at different speeds so as to quickly ensure all bikes could catch up to the pack quickly, this stretched Lecuona’s advantage by almost 50secs to well over a minute.

With Kawasaki switching up the running order to put Rea on the bike next, versus Takumi Takahashi, the Ulsterman did indeed begin making in-roads into the lead.

However, his momentum would make him somewhat ragged while negotiating traffic with Rea’s awkward lunge up the inside of a backmarker at the Turn 12 flip-flop chicane resulting in a front-end fold that sent him and the bike skating down the escape road into the foam barriers.

Getting both himself and the bike up again, Rea resumed unscathed without even entering the pits but it was another 30secs lost to the front. Worse still, with Kawasaki needing a longer pit-stop next time around to check for damage, Haslam returned to the track in third and with Nagashima bearing down on him.

The Japanese subsequently overtook Haslam to put HRC a lap clear of KRT, a critical moment that neither Rea, Haslam nor Lowes could reverse.

Instead, KRT settled into a battle with the YART Yamaha team for second place, a position the two teams would swap repeatedly as they pitted out of sequence with one another. However, when YART ran into myriad issues during the final hour, the KRT protected the ZX-10RR to bring it home a strong, if distant, second

“It has been a really enjoyable week here in Suzuka with my team,” said Rea. “All the team staff, plus my team-mates Leon and Alex, meant that the atmosphere has been incredible. We have worked really well together, everyone from back room staff, strategy people, caterers, nutritionists, doctors – every single person in the team worked so hard with a busy schedule to get here.

“It is not easy to have two goals in a single season – the WorldSBK championship and also the Suzuka 8 Hours. We had huge competition here, and did our best. I feel we just came up short but we can be proud, and really proud of my team-mates and everyone else for their hard work.It is a little bit bitter sweet coming second best but I think we can fly home knowing we gave it our best shot.

“There were a few mistakes in the race, a few issues, but that is Endurance racing and we can stand on that podium and be proud of our efforts. Thanks to Kawasaki and all of our sponsors for making this happen and no doubt we will be back again to try and go one better.”

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HRC Honda clear in Q1 as ex-Moto2 racer Nagashima stuns

Team HRC has established itself as the early squad to bear during this weekend’s Suzuka 8 Hours after Tetsuta Nagashima emerged to the top of the timesheets in both FP1 and Q1 by a huge margin.

Making his Suzuka 8 Hours debut this weekend alongside Takumi Takahashi and ex-MotoGP rider Iker Lecuona as part of the flagship HRC entry from Honda – one of 16 teams representing the marque at its home venue – Nagashima belied his relative inexperience at the venue by looking very much at home on it.

Stopping the clock for a best of 2m 05.823s in the two-hour FP1 sessionh, Nagashima went to take almost a full second off that benchmark in Q1 with a 2m 04.942s lap set in the first of the three 20min qualifying phases, slicing a full 0.2s off the lap record in the process.

With no other rider able to get close to his best time, Nagashima – who has not raced on a high-profile stage since announcing he would be quitting Moto2 at the end of the 2020 season – would end Q1 almost a second clear over nearest rival Niccolo Canepa on the YART Yamaha R1.

With the Q1 and later Q2 session split into three phases – designated for what organizers refer to as ‘Yellow’, ‘Blue’ and ‘Red’ riders, aka Rider #1, #2 and #3 respectively – while the first and second 20min sessions went ahead without issue, the third was met by rain falling at one sector of the lap, preventing those going last to get anywhere near the top times.

It meant six-time WorldSBK title winning Jonathan Rea’s efforts would be compromised, though Alex Lowes was still quick enough to put the Kawasaki Racing Team in third position, ahead of the domestic Astemo Honda Dream team of Terusuke Sakumoto, Kazuma Watanabe and Taiga Haneda was close behind in fourth.

SDG Honda Racing completed the top five thanks to a rapid lap by Teppei Nagoshi in the first session, relegating FCC TSR France – Honda’s nominated Endurance World Championship effort – down into sixth position.

Two more Honda teams filled out the top ten with Honda Sofukai Suzuka and Honda Dream Racing Team Sakurai ending Q1 in seventh and ninth respectively.

They sandwiched Spa 24 Hours winners BMW – the only entry in the entire field to be competing with European riders on a European motorcycle built by a European manufacturer – in eighth.

Defending EWC champions Yoshimura Suzuki Endurance Racing Team completed the top ten despite doing without its star rider Sylvain Guintoli, who skipped Q1 to rest a hand injury, while Gregg Black is a late addition to the line-up alongisde Kazuki Watanabe after Xavier Simeon was struck down by COVID.

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