In the FIM Endurance World Championship, the GMT94 Yamaha team is at the top of the heap. The defending champions, GMT94 Yamaha is only 10 points back in the current season from holding the FIM EWC trophy, with only one race remaining.
One round is all that the French team has, however, as the GMT94 Yamaha team will be calling it quits after this month’s Suzuka 8-Hours race. Needless to say, this is huge news for motorcycle endurance racing fans.
With three world titles under its belt and seventeen FIM EWC race victories on its tally, GMT94 Yamaha will leave the Endurance World Championship for happier hunting grounds in the World Supersport Championship.
As such, the French squad will leave a massive hole behind in EWC, as the GMT94 Yamaha squad tackles the remainder of the 2018 WorldSSP season with Corentin Perolari, before taking on the World Supersport Championship full-time in 2019.
The GMT94 Yamaha team is one of two “factory” teams in the FIM Endurance World Championship, sharing the duty with the Yamaha Austria Racing Team (YART).
Both squads have given Yamaha positive racing results, but only GMT94 has brought home world titles for the tuning fork brand.
Moving into the World Supersport Championship, GMT94 Yamaha will be replacing the GRT Yamaha squad, which is moving up into the World Superbike Championship.
This effectively restructures Yamaha’s motorcycle racing lineup on the world stage, and it will be interesting to see how this storied endurance squad can compete in a new series, with a new machine.
What does this move mean for the FIM Endurance World Championship though? That remains to be seen.
The YART squad will continue to carry the banner for Yamaha, and the Iwata company seems determined to continue fielding a factory team for the important Suzuka 8-Hours race.
The Yamaha Factory Racing Team will look for its fourth-straight Suzuka victory this year, an unprecedented result at the Japanese round, and a huge blow to the track favorite, Honda.
Source: GMT94 Yamaha
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