For the first event of the new World Endurance Championship, Gilles Stafler's team called on the services of Randy to ride his official Kawasaki alongside Gregory Leblanc and Fabien Foret.
Matthieu Lagrive having left the Kawasaki structure to join that of Team April Moto Motors Events, world leader until the last race at Oschersleben, Randy de Puniet will replace him on the Castellet circuit on September 17 and 18. This will be his first participation in the famous classic, but he already knows endurance having finished second in the 8 Hours of Suzuka in 2014 on the Suzuki Yoshimura, at the time when he was developing the MotoGP GSX-RR (brilliantly, as we saw on Sunday at Silverstone).
On the occasion of these 8 hours, his teammate Takuya Tsuda took pole position ahead of the official Yamaha of Katsuyuki Nakasuga and the Honda FCC TSR of Johnny Rea. The race victory went to the Musashi RT Harc-Pro Honda of Takumi Takahashi, Leon Haslam and Michael Van den Mark, while the Suzuki of Takuya Tsuda, Josh Waters and Randy de Puniet finished second ahead of the other Suzuki of Noriyuki Haga, Dominique Aegerter and Yukio Kagayama.
Is Randy sharp enough to compete in the Bol d'Or? There was never any doubt about it KTM who used his services during development tests of the RC16 recently in Valencia, Brno and Jerez.
