After the preliminary tests in mid-May, we have now reached the decisive week of the Suzuka 8 Hours, the third round of the FIM EWC Endurance World Championship.
The legendary Japanese race, whose lap record belongs to..., needs no introduction. Johann zarco In 204290, we will nevertheless recall some facts concerning the 2026 edition.
– Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki are once again battling it out, this time with BMW and Kawasaki but without Ducati, whose endurance project with the team of
Yukio Kagayama was not renewed,
– The mid-May tests saw Honda HRC perpetuate its current domination of the event, achieving 2'04.773 ahead of Yoshimura SERT Motul in 2'04.856 and FCC TSR Honda France in 2'04.969.
- Hurt, Johann zarco is replaced by
Somkiat Chantra,
– The official Honda #30 has won four consecutive races.
– The 2026 Suzuka 8 Hours have been brought forward by about a month compared to usual…
We will have time to go over all of this in detail, but today the first official tests took place, with temperatures not as scorching as in previous years, while unstable weather is expected this week until the weekend.
The day's program included 5 sessions, the first of which, a practice session held from 9 a.m. to 17 p.m., took place under clear skies, taking advantage of a break in the rainy season. Only one motorcycle per team (out of 50) was allowed to ride.
From the outset, the Honda HRC #30 (Takumi Tahashi, Somkiat Chantra, Jonathan Rea) imposed its mark in 2'06.429 ahead of the Yoshimura SERT Motul #12 (Gregg Black, Dan Linfoot, Cocoro Atsumi) at +0,384, the BMW Motorrad World Endurance Team #37 (Markus Reiterberger, Steven Odendaal, Michael Van Der Mark) at +0,568 and the Yamaha Factory Racing team #21 (Katsuyuki Nakasuga, Jack Miller, Andrea Locatelli) at +0,724.
The second practice session, which started five minutes late at 10:50 and was scheduled to last 75 minutes, also took place on a dry track.
This time, the virtual podium consisted of the Honda #30 in 2'05.999 ahead of the BMW #37 at +0,162 and the Yamaha #21 at +0,440.
The session was interrupted by red flags for approximately 17 minutes in the middle of the session and for approximately 3 minutes towards the end.
The third practice session took place over 60 minutes, starting at 13:30 PM. The fastest time was set by the #37 BMW in 2'05.784 Yamaha #21 at +0,353 and Honda #30 at +0,457.
A 15-minute interval took place between practice session 3 and session 4, which lasted 90 minutes.
The BMW #37 in 2'05.784 was once again the fastest, this time in 2'05.098 ahead of the Honda #30 at +0,510 and the YART Yamaha Official EWC Team #1 (Karel Hanika, Marvin Fritz, Leandro Mercado) at +0,515.
Finally, session 5, lasting 90 minutes, also saw the Yamaha #21 recorded 2'04.920 at the top of the table, ahead of BMW #37 at +0,528 and Honda #30 at +0,577.
While this first day confirms the strengths of the contenders for victory, no one is panicking because the week's program is very busy, including in particular 5 new identical practice sessions tomorrow, before Friday's qualifying…
Thanks to the Bridgestone team for the information and photos!
