With the 2024 FIM Endurance World Championship and FIM Endurance World Cup titles up for grabs at Circuit Paul Ricard this weekend, former EWC title winner turned EWC pit reporter Xavier Siméon is your X-pert guide to the Bol d’Or and what’s at stake.
Title battle: “The world title battle will be huge. We have two favourites who can be world champion, Yamaha and Suzuki, and another contender, BMW. From the qualifying practice we can see everybody wants the title because they know in 24-hour races everything can happen. We have the attribution of points after qualifying, eight hours, 16 hours, they are all very focused on the job and we will have a big, big battle between them.”
Mental strain: “In endurance it’s a strange feeling when you are going for the title. I have been in this situation for sprint races but in sprint races you are individual, it’s just you. But in endurance it’s more difficult mentally because you have all your team-mates behind you and you don’t want to make any mistake. The approach for this race, especially with the windy conditions, will be quite difficult. Le Castellet is famous for the heavy wind and the riders can struggle a lot. I know the nine riders who are fighting for the title and I know they will fight like hell to be world champion
Different reasons to win: “All the riders want to be world champion but for different reasons. Niccolò Canepa wants to end his career as world champion. Suzuki wants to get the #1 back on the bike and BMW wants to be world champion for the first time. Everybody will push and I am sure of that. We will have a very exciting race.”
The mighty Mistral: “I don’t think the stress is a lot more than at other tracks. At the end you have to make 24 hours. For sure with the Mistral if you have back wind maybe you can have more RPM at the end of the straight and then you have to manage a little bit. It will be down to the cleverness of the rider to save a bit the engine and not go too high on the RPM. But we can see now all the brands are fast and very consistent. This track doesn’t create more problems than any other track for me.”
A mythical race: “Especially for me this is a mythical race. When I was coming here as a kid with my father [Michel], all the time in the mountains, the last part before you arrive at this track, make you feel different, you already feel the adrenalin under your skin so Bol d’Or is a very mythical race and I wish many rider can win it because the feeling when you are winning is incredible.”
Original Source [ FIM EWC ]
