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Up-Close with the 2018 Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000R Suzuka 8-Hours Race Bike

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In all our coverage of the 2018 Suzuka 8-Hours endurance race, the name Suzuki has woefully not been in much of the conversation.

This isn’t to say that the brand from Hamamatsu wasn’t present at this prestigious event, but its level of involvement and readiness certainly wasn’t on par with the other three Japanese brands.

Fielding the Yoshimura Suzuki factory-backed team yet again, this year saw a big milestone take place, as Suzuki’s endurance efforts are now being conducted on the current-generation superbike.

This has caused some issues in the paddock, most notably in the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team (SERT), which is Suzuki’s factory-backed team in the FIM World Endurance Championship.

The winningest team in the FIM EWC – by a considerable amount – SERT struggled during the 2017/2018 season, finishing 6th overall in the championship. Surely as they sort out the new GSX-R1000R, SERT will once again be on top of the game.

In the hunt at Suzuka, it was the Yoshimura Suzuki team that was carrying the banner for Suzuki, finishing 10th – of note, behind the Suzuki team of S-Pulse Dream Racing – IAI, which finished 4th.

A man on a mission, Steve was able to get a bunch of shots of the Yoshimura Suzuki bike before it took to the track. You should check them out, and if you haven’t already, you should see his captures of the Suzuka race bikes from Red Bull Honda, Yamaha Factory Racing Team, and Kawasaki Team Green.

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Racing

Kawasaki Takes Pole at Suzuka 8-Hours – Rea Sets Record

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A typhoon is heading towards Suzuka, but as the paddock battened down the hatches, the winds of change had already set in.

Jonathan Rea’s pole position for Kawasaki ended three year’s of Yamaha topping the times. The three-time WorldSBK champion will be out to do the same during tomorrow’s race.

Kawasaki hasn’t won the biggest race of the year since 1993 – their sole success with Scott Russell and Aaron Slight at the helm – but they may not have a better opportunity than tomorrow.

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Kawasaki Team Green Stuns in Suzuka 8-Hours Qualifying

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Jonathan Rea grabbed the headlines on Friday in Japan, with an unofficial lap record at the Suzuka 8-Hours, which put the Kawasaki Team Green ZX-10RR on a pole-position start.

The Northern Irishman was nine tenths of a second faster than Pol Espargaro’s 2016 pole lap, and Rea’s time was made all the more impressive by the fact that he, like the majority of front-runners, didn’t opt to use a qualifying tire.

The FIM Endurance World Championship regulations allow teams to use 14 sets of tires throughout the Suzuka weekend, and with eight tires allocated for the race, and two qualifying tires, it means that for the opening two days the front-runners focus on race pace with used tyres.

Though of note, Rea set his fastest time in the second qualifying session, with a fresh tire.

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Trackside Tuesday: A Day in the Sun at Oulton Park

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Above: Glen Irwin is a man fast on the roads and on the short circuits. He won the feature race at last year’s North West 200 and backed that up with a win in Macau. As I write this, he’s just won a race at the North West 200 on his Ducati.

If MotoGP contracts were handed out based solely on the character of a race track, then Oulton Park in England would be at the top of the list.

The city is set in the idyllic Cheshire countryside, only 30 miles from the Beatles hometown of Liverpool, and 13 miles from the historic city of Chester. The track is fast, techinical, with natural elevation changes and spectacular scenery.

There are few finer places to watch motorcycle racing when the sun is shining than at Oulton Park. The natural banking around the track offers great unobstructed views.

If you’re a keen photographer the circuit offers fantastic opportunities with very few fences getting in the way.

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Bikes

Video: Dragging Elbow on the Vyrus 986 M2

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We already told you that the Vyrus 986 M2 was going racing in the Spanish CEV Moto2 Championship, with British rider Bradley Ray on-board, and now we get to see the first fruits of those labors.

Testing at the Cartagena circuit in Spain, Ray helped Vyrus develop a number of aspects on the Moto2 machine, especially the chassis, suspension, and air box, which Vyrus hopes to implement at another test later this month.

Until then, we leave you with this slightly frantic helmet rotor cam of Bradley Ray, dragging elbow, on the Vyrus 986 M2. Enjoy!

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Vyrus 986 M2 Goes Racing in the Spanish CEV

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The Vyrus 986 M2 Moto2 race bike is perhaps one of the most beautiful machines to grace the pages of Asphalt & Rubber, as it comes with ample portions of avant-garde design and outside-of-the-box chassis design inklings.

We also like the Vyrus 986 M2 because its true to the ethos of the Moto2 class, where chassis designers were free to build around a spec-motor and racing package.

But, instead of getting a buffet of wild designs, we saw a race to the middle. The differences between the chassis provided by companies like Suter, Kalex, FTR are so minute that the smallest of changes can shake up the standings on race day.

It’s something we have talked about before, here at A&R, but the short explanation is that race teams are conservative entities, and developing a radically new chassis is a massive undertaking full of risks.

Well, it look like Vyrus is up to the the task and that danger, as the company is going racing with its Vyrus 986 M2 design in the Spanish CEV Moto2 Championship.

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