All Entrants Ran in WEC Class – 8 Hour Points will be Hard Fought...

The Suzuka 300km race – nicknamed the “Road to 8 Hours” and widely seen as a prologue for the Suzuka 8 Hour round of the World Endurance Championship – has been won by the Yoshimura Jomo Suzuki GSX-R1000 pairing of Yukio Kagayama and Kohsuke Akiyoshi. Yoshimura Suzuki won last year's Suzuka 8 Hour race.

Second place went to the No.11 Dream Honda CBR1000RR of Ryuichi Kiyonari and Carlos Checa, who finished just 2.336 seconds behind the winners. Another Yoshimura Suzuki (Sakai and Watanabe) was third, with sole rider Katsuyuki Nakasuga's YSP Presto Yamaha YZF-R1 fourth and Jonathon Rea and Yusuke Teshima fifth on the No.33 Dream Honda.

Akira Yanagawa brought the first Kawasaki ZX10R home in sixth place. Takeshi Tsjujimura and Shin'ichi Itoh finished seventh on the FCC TSR Honda, with Cal Crutchlow and Tatsuya Yamaguchi eighth on the Moriwaki Honda. Tenth placed qualifiers Leon Haslam and Chojun Kameya only completed nine laps on the Sakurai Honda.

Full Results are available on the excellent www.MotoRacing-Japan.com

As far as we can tell, all the entrants to the race were running in the Formula WEC class. If this is repeated for the Suzuka 8 Hour race, it could make it very difficult for many of the permanent teams to score points.

In the past, a permanent team finishing the 8 Hour was almost guaranteed to score championship points as so few of the Japanese teams were entered in one of the FIM classes. With this year's changes to the racing classes, it looks as though all of the entrants will be eligible for points; only teams finishing in the top fifteen will add to their championship score.

Last year only three permanent teams – SERT Suzuki, FCC TSR Eurosport and Yamaha Phase One – finished in the top fifteen.