[EWC] Start of the Bol d'Or at loggerheads between Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha and Honda. BMW out.

The first hour of this 2018 Bol d'Or which takes place on the Paul Ricard circuit in Le Castellet was relatively clear: after opposition from the SERT Suzuki at the first corner, the SRT Kawasaki quickly took the advantage in the hands of Randy de Puniet.

Little by little, the ZX-10R built up a lead of a few seconds over the GSX-R led by Gregg Black, the #111 Honda, the #6 BMW, the #7 YART Yamaha and the reigning champion FCC TSR Honda.

After an hour, all these bikes were held within around twenty seconds when a collision with Yamaha #12 forced Julien Dacosta on the ERC-BMW Motorrad Endurance to push his official S 1000 RR back to the box.

The Yamaha rider remaining on the ground, the safety car was out and allowed a general regrouping which then caused a superb fight between the Kawasaki SRC driven by Jérémy Guarnoni and the SERT Suzuki masterfully led by Vincent Philippe.

At the end of the 2nd hour, the 6 favorite and aforementioned motorcycles were simply held within 8 seconds, with the exception of course of the official BMW which had lost all chance of doing well.

During the 3rd hour, Randy de Puniet once again had an extremely solid stint and managed to create a lead of just twenty seconds.

But shortly after this provisional classification, the KTM MotoGP test rider lost all his advantage by being forced to slow down due to a lack of fuel.

Suddenly, the Suzuki took the lead, one second ahead of the FCC TSR Honda and 15 seconds ahead of the #111 Honda, before having to refuel. The Kawasaki, less than a lap away, then began its comeback... and has just joined the Suzuki as we publish these lines!

Follow the progress of the race on Eurosport or thanks to Live Timing.