Leading riders from the FIM Endurance World Championship are already getting prepared to for the heat and humidity they expect to face during next month’s 44th Coca-Cola Suzuka 8 Hours Endurance Race.
Although it’s the shortest event on the EWC calendar, Japan’s round of the all-action championship from 4-6 August is ranked as the toughest due to the conditions.
Niccolò Canepa, part of the Yamalube YART Yamaha EWC Official Team, a favourite for the Suzuka victory, described the challenge in Japan as “extreme”.
The track is really, really challenging and when you ride with this very high temperature and the humidity, the leather suit on and the sun is out, it’s really, really tough for the riders, the Italian continued. It’s really tough for the machines, the tyres and everything. The stint is more or less one hour long and in the last 15 minutes it’s like the time is never moving forward, it’s really, really tough, especially when you are following somebody. When you have the heat of the bike in front of you it’s even worse, it’s really hard but we train a lot for that and we have to be ready. It’s absolutely the hottest race of the year. It’s extreme compared to Le Mans and Spa.
Grégory Leblanc, who will return to Suzuka with the Kawasaki Webike Trickstar team, said: The temperature is crazy, it’s very hot. I remember we had 40 degrees temperature, which is very high but the problem is the humidity. When you ride one hour with the leather, with the helmet, when you finish you want to go directly into the swimming pool.
BMW Motorrad Word Endurance Team racer Jérémy Guarnoni said: It’s quite tricky condition, especially with the warm temperature and also the humidity. Sometimes it’s quite difficult for us to manage. It’s only eight hours but, for me, it’s the most intense stint of all the season so it’s a really, really hard race.
Original Source [ FIM EWC ]