The #1 Suzuki of the Franco-French structure is currently holding the lead in Sarthe, ahead of the #7 Yamaha of Yamaha-YART.
After long months of waiting, the EWC motorcycle endurance world championship resumed its rights this Thursday with the start of the first round of the season, which is being held on the Bugatti circuit in Le Mans.
And the notion of endurance has never fit so well into the event, with a very busy first day with a free practice session in the morning, followed by the first part of qualifying. At the time of writing, the drivers have not finished yet and are in the process of getting their bearings during free night practice.
The YART is off to a strong start…
If the 47 crews got to the heart of the matter today, the first runs nevertheless began a little earlier in the week, with private tests organized on Tuesday in Sarthe. The opportunity to get back into the swing of things and gauge oneself, and in this exercise it was the #37 BMW of the BMW World Endurance Team which pulled the chestnuts out of the fire with a very first benchmark in 1'36.260, ahead of the Yamaha #7 of the Yart-Yamaha.
After a slight respite yesterday, the latter pushed its advantage this morning during the free practice session, in the hands of Czech rider Karel Hanika, author of a 1'36.014, ahead of the #1 Suzuki of Yoshimura SERT Motul and the Kawasaki #4 from Tati Beringer Racing, which had already done well during private testing, finished in third position overall.
Yamaha versus Suzuki, these seem to be the dominant forces this pre-weekend, and this was confirmed during the first part of qualifying, which kicked off at 16 p.m. Let's remember the principle of these: the drivers of each team are divided into armbands: blue, yellow and red (note that there are also green armbands dedicated to replacements). Each of them achieves a best time, the ranking being established by averaging all the best times of each team.
In this little game, if Hanika initially allowed Yamaha-YART to stay in the lead, with a reference very similar to the one he had achieved this morning (only four thousandths slower, in 1'36.018), the Suzuki #1 of Yoshimura Suzuki SERT subsequently took the lead thanks to Xavier Siméon.
HOLESHOT 😅
Qualifying session has started for the blue riders. 🏍💨#FIMEWC l @24heuremotos pic.twitter.com/BeKM613s9P
— FIM EWC (@FIM_EWC) June 10, 2021
The Belgian won by a 1'36.200, thus ensuring first place for the Franco-French structure. The latter was subsequently reinforced by Sylvain Guintoli, author of a time in 1'36.592. For the moment, it is the Yoshimura Suzuki SERT team which holds the upper hand on the Le Mans side, but narrowly ahead of the Yamaha-YART #7 which finishes only four unfortunate thousandths behind.
A tenuous gap which promises a suspenseful scenario for this 44th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans motorcycles. Third place currently goes to the #37 BMW of the BMW Motorrad World Endurance Team, relegated to almost half a second. This one is ahead of the #4 Kawasaki of Tati Team Beringer Racing.
What about the latest winner, the FCC TSR Honda France? He is currently slightly behind, in fifth place, but intends to join the fight for victory thanks to the second qualifying session, which will be held tomorrow from 10:20 a.m. to 12:10 p.m., and will determine the hierarchy which will take place on the starting grid on Saturday afternoon.
Before that, there is still the night free practice session for today, which takes place from 21:30 p.m. to 23 p.m. An essential session as it allows entrants to re-acclimatize to the specificities of night driving, with cooler temperatures as well as different landmarks on the track.
24 Hours of Le Mans motorcycles – Ranking after the first qualifying session:
Classification credit: Fimewc.fr
