Ducati will be at the start of All Japan Superbike 2024 with the Team Kagayama. This sparked a reaction from Honda and Yamaha to Ryo Mizuno's V4 R.
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While the engines are off, with the team still to be presented (this will not happen until next February), the arrival of Ducati Corse with the Team Kagayama in the All Japan Superbike (and in the Suzuka 8 Hours) has already caused a sensation. A program of this type in the premier class of JSB1000, essentially unprecedented, generated a counter-offensive from the opponents. If they weren't scared, at least they seemed anything but indifferent to the idea of having to compete on the track with a competitive Ducati Panigale V4 R. Even more so if it is entrusted to a fast driver like Ryo Mizuno, and even more so if it is fielded by a high-level team. like the one led by Yukio Kagayama.
HISTORIC DUCATI ARRIVAL IN JAPANESE SUPERBIKE
Japanese manufacturers are used to monopolizing the scene at the Suzuka 8 Hours (no European manufacturer has ever finished on the podium in 44 editions) and, of course, in the All Japan Superbike. The Ducati Team Kagayama project is an unprecedented fact that cannot go unnoticed. The certainty that this will be a program created to aim high is reaffirmed by the choices of those directly involved. Protected by HRC until developing the CBR 1000RR-R for the Suzuka 8 Hours, Ryo Mizuno left Honda after no less than 11 years. Not to mention Yukio Kagayama : To embrace the Ducati cause, he ended a 33-year association with Suzuki as rider, team owner and, for the past two years, team manager of Yoshimura Suzuki RIDE WIN in the JSB1000.
YAMAHA LOOKING TOWARDS THE FUTURE
The Ducati Kagayama team will certainly start with the podium in their sights, but victory will be difficult. Especially with a
Katsuyuki Nakasuga having won his 12th (!) All Japan Superbike title in 2023, ready to defend number 1 again with the Yamaha Factory Racing R1. Besides the “king” of the Rising Sun motorcycle, there will again be Yuki Okamoto, with the house of three tuning forks looking towards the future. Recently at SUGO she tested several potential pilots, including Akito Haga, Noriyuki's eldest son.
HONDA BRINGS TETSUTA NAGASHIMA BACK ON THE TRACK IN THE ALL JAPAN SUPERBIKE
Honda's counterattack is also very interesting. In order to regain a title that has eluded him since 2017 (at the time with the HARC-PRO team and Takumi Takahashi as pilot), it was announced that Tetsuta nagashima will play the full season of the series. The Honda MotoGP and World Superbike test rider has now secured not only “one-off” appearances and the certainty of competing exclusively in the Suzuka 8 Hours, but also the entire JSB1000 season. The lap record holder at Suzuka is already one of the legitimate contenders for the title, even before knowing which team he will enter.
DUCATI WILL FACE AN ECOLOGICAL ALL JAPAN
The Ducati Kagayama team will find itself with tough opponents and an additional challenge that will also directly affect Borgo Panigale. Since last year, the All Japan Superbike has undertaken, before all major national and international motorcycle championships, an “ecological” shift with the regulatory adoption of the 100% renewable biofuel Renewablaze NIHON R100 supplied by ETS Racing Fuels. A transition which did not lead to any particular collapse in terms of performance (the chronometric references remained approximately the same), but rather a period of adaptation and, for certain manufacturers, KO engines during the first tests. It will be a challenge for the reds of Bologna in All Japan, and a time trial: the 2024 season will begin in just over two months at Suzuka….
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Alessio Piana
