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Etienne Masson

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The winningest team in the FIM Endurance World Championship, the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team is the standard by which other endurance teams are measured…and that is a measuring stick that has seen a lot of use in recent seasons.

This is because the FIM EWC is a hot bed for competition right now, with a bevy of factory-backed teams capable of winning on any race weekend.

This has made it tough for SERT, and its riders Vincent Philippe, Etienne Masson, and Gregg Black, who currently sit sixth in the 2018 FIM Endurance World Championship standings.

For this season, SERT hopes that a new racing platform will make the difference, as the French team has finally jumped onboard with the current-generation Suzuki GSX-R1000.

Last year, SERT was still using the old GSX-R1000, despite the superbike being replaced with a new model for consumers in 2017.

Any in racing series, defending the #1 plate is no easy feat, and when it comes to motorcycle racing, this statement is the most true in the FIM Endurance World Championship.

Composed of only four races for the 2016 season, the endurance championship still requires 52 hours of racing, and many more hours of practice and qualifying leading up to that figure.

To put that in perspective, it is roughly three-times more racing that MotoGP does in a season, and twice as much racing than what occurs in the World Superbike Championship.

All that extra racing time means there are more opportunity for where things can go wrong, and with only four opportunities to score points, it makes reliability, teamwork, and racecraft all the more important.

It is also worth mentioning the FIM Endurance World Championship is the only racing series where a tire war still exists, and it is also a battlefield where four factory-backed manufacturers can win at any particular event.

With all that considered then, we must give a well-earned congratulations to the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team (SERT), along with its riders Vincent Philippe, Anthony Delhalle, and Etienne Masson, for winning the 2016 FIM Endurance World Championship.

While our attention right now is mostly on Austin, Texas for the MotoGP round, the FIM Endurance World Championship is kicking off in Le Mans, France.

And since one cannot talk about motorcycle endurance racing without also mentioning first one of the its most dominant teams, we bring you the launch of the 2016 Suzuki Endurance Racing Team.

Comprised of riders Anthony Delhalle, Vincent Philipe, and Etienne Masson for the 2016 season, SERT again has a strong team riding its tricked out Suzuki GSX-R1000, and there is a strong possibility that the outfit will successfully defend its #1 plate.

Taking things all the way to the last round of the championship – the Bol d’Or 24 Hour race – the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team can finally lay claim to being the the 2015 FIM Endurance World Champions.

Though endurance racing is very much a team effort, this victory for SERT couldn’t have been achieved without the team’s EWC veteran riders: Vincent Philippe, Anthony Delhalle, and Etienne Masson.

The trio’s results have allowed Suzuki to claim its 14th EWC title, which is just one part of the Japanese brand’s domination in the FIM Endurance World Championship.

On its road to EWC glory, SERT won at Le Mans, finished fourth in the very competitive specialist field at Suzuka, landed second on the podium at Oschersleben, and wrapped up the Bol d’Or in the third position.

If there is one team name that is synonymous with winning the FIM Endurance World Championship, it has to be SERT. The Suzuki Endurance Racing Team has won 13 EWC titles in the past three decades, by far the winningest squad on the motorcycle endurance circuit.

Last-year’s runner-up, Suzuki is looking to be back on top for the 2015 season, despite having the oldest racing platform on the starting line — a statement that perhaps highlights the consistency and teamwork that makes SERT a cut above the rest of the World Endurance teams.

Continuing that tradition in 2015 will be riders Vincent Philippe and Anthony Delhalle, who will be joined by their new teammate Etienne Masson.

SERT will test their mettle April 18th, at the 2015 Bol d’Or 24-hour race, but we’ve got a few high-resolution photos of the beautiful EWC-spec 2015 Suzuki GSX-R1000 race bike right here, after the jump.