A special test session was organised at Magny-Cours, France, on Monday and Tuesday of this week (Augus t 24-25) ahead of September’s Bol d’Or.
Both Michelin teams - the MICHELIN Power Research Team and YART - attended the session to put the finishing touches to their preparations for the race and validate some new tyres.
“We are [...]

Michelin will naturally take part in the official test days at Nevers Magny-Cours on August 24-25 as part of its build-up to the 2009 Bol d’Or, the next round of the FIM Endurance World Championship.
Matt Lagrive, the new recruit to race alongside William Costes and Josep Monge on the N°63 Honda, will be in attendance [...]

Gwen Giabbani is one of the three riders who make up the line-up of Yamaha Austria Racing Team (YART) which currently tops the FIM Endurance World Championship, and he has taken time to answer our questions.
It’s been a perfect year so far for YART, with a score of three wins from four races…
It hasn’t been [...]

YART is just one point short of the 2009 Endurance World Championship title.
 

Cl            N°          Team                                                     Total       Mans      Osch     Alba.      Suz
1             7             Yamaha Austria Racing Team       111         35           30           30           16
2             69           RT Racing Team                                 47           18           19           [...]

 
YART’s Igor Jerman, Steve Martin and Gwen Giabbani overcame the extremely difficult weather conditions in Japan to put in a storming race which bagged fourth overall at the flag. Their performance puts the team just one point short of the 2009 Endurance World Championship title.
 
The YART bike started from 14th on the grid before carving [...]

 
With four of the eight hours already completed, the YART bike is currently fifth overall.
The team’s Yamaha R1 ran at a quick pace from the start and was up to fourth place after the first hour, helped on its way by two falls, including that of the favourite, the N°1 F.C.C. TSR Honda.
Changing weather, which [...]

 
1. FCC TSR Honda 1 (JPN/Honda/K. Akiyoshi, S. Ito, Y. Teshima) 2’07.796
2. Musashi RT Harc-Pro 634 (JPN/Honda/T. Yasuda, T. Yamaguchi, Y. Konishi) 2’07.866
3. Yoshimura Suzuki 12 (JPN/Suzuki/D. Sakai, K. Tokudome, N. Aoki ) 2’08.550
4. Plot Faro Panthera 48 (JPN/Suzuki/O. Deguchi, K. Teramoto) 2’10.011
5. Trick Star Racing 5 (JPN/Kawasaki/H. Izutsu, S. Takeishi, R.Tsuruta) 2’10.290
6. Honda Dream [...]

The fastest rider for YART in the second qualifying session was once again Gwen Giabbani, although he was unfortunately unnable to repeat his time of the morning because of a troubled lap when running with the rear qualifying tyre.
Based on its times for the first and second sessions, YART failed to make the cut for [...]

YART profited from the first qualifying session at Suzuka to post the 10th quickest time thanks to Gwen Giabbbani’s flying lap of 2m 11.638s.
His performance makes YART the best-placed permanent team on the provisional grid.
 
Unlike at other rounds of the championship, where grid positions are based on the average time of a team’s three riders, [...]

 
Thursday morning’s first free practice session took place in dry conditions. Teams were allowed to run both their bikes, and that had a knock-on effect on the amount of traffic on the track.
As specified in the regulations, the times for this session were not published.
Michelin used the session to run three types of rear slicks. [...]