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Le Mans 24Hours

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Long-time readers of Asphalt & Rubber will know my love of endurance racing motorcycles – there is something about these purpose-built race bikes that have to perform reliably hour-after hour that strikes my fancy.

So, upon hearing that the Suzuki Endurance Race Team (SERT) won the 24-Hours of Le Mans this weekend, it was all the excuse I needed to post up some photos of the Yoshimura-backed squad and their Suzuki GSX-R1000 race bike.

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.

Yamaha is looking to defend its FIM Endurance World Championship title, won last year by the Yamaha GMT94 squad. Yamaha is still very much in the hunt for the 2015 title, though the GMT94 guys will have to post some strong results to overcome their 5th place finish at the EWC’s first round, at Le Mans.

You wouldn’t know that the reigning world champions were having a tough time of it, after checking out their promotional video from the 24 Hours of Le Mans Moto — it’s that well done.

Hopefully that will translate onto the track for the French team, and their Austrian counterparts at YART, who are also featured.

HRC continues its bid for an FIM Endurance World Championship, and has reconfirmed its team of Julien Da Costa, Freddy Foray, and Sebastien Gimbert for the 2015 season.

Honda switched strategies in the EWC last year, dropping its “TT Legends” squad of venerable road racers for the current trio of endurance experts.

The plan worked, as HRC finished 7th in the 2014 Endurance World Championship, winning the Oschersleben 8-hour in the process. This was a marked improvement over the 2013 season, where the Honda TT Legends team finished a disappointing 18th overall.

We knew at some point that the eight-part “TT Legends” documentary would have to come to an end, and today is that day. For the last seven Wednesday’s, we have been enjoying the racing antics of the Honda TT Legends team, as they compete in road racing and endurance events.

Our final installment comes from the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which also happens to be the final stop on the FIM Endurance World Championship calendar. The Honda TT Legends crew is mathematically in the hunt for the Championship victory, but they need a solid result at Le Mans to solidify a Top 3 position.

After years of being competitors, the FIM and TTXGP have finally come together to form a new cohesive series, and now they are finally ready to debut the name of their new lovechild, the eRoadRacing World Cup.

Premiering with six racing events, three in Europe, and three in the United States, the 2013 eRoadRacing provisional racing calendar primarily piggybacks off the FIM’s other Championship events, with the Indianapolis GP being the highlight addition to the schedule.

With American teams racing at two MotoGP Championship races (the other being Laguna Seca), and the Europeans racing in front of two World Endurance Championship crowds (Oschersleben & Le Mans), the exposure factor should be conducive to sponsors as well as teams for the 2013 season.

Additionally, the eRoadRacing calendar leaves a big enough hole open in its schedule for teams that want to race at the TT Zero event at the Isle of Man TT. Now isn’t that sporting? A still unset World Final is expected to be held in Asia, at the conclusion of the American and Europeans series. The provisional calendars for both series are after the jump.