Bol d'Or 24 Hours: BMW emerges from the night unscathed and extremely fast, but must now hope

An incredible show of strength: BMW Motorrad is dominating the 89th edition of the Bol d’Or 24 Hours, the Endurance World Championship finale. The night went by calm and smooth for the German juggernaut. But it’s still not enough to clinch the World Championship.

Entrusted to Michael van der Mark, Steven Odendaal and Markus Reiterberger, the factory M1000RR has been untouchable so far. The performance is incredible, with a five-point bonus banked for pole, but the race pace is even better. The real ace up their sleeve, though, is lower fuel consumption compared to their rivals—even Honda, which has always leveraged this advantage in endurance racing, especially with the HRC-entered CBR-RR at the Suzuka 8 Hours. In addition to the qualifying bonus, BMW has also pocketed the ten points up for grabs for leading at the eighth and sixteenth hour of the race.

Winning the Bol d’Or, however, won’t be enough to secure the Endurance World Championship. BMW must hope that Yamaha YART, still leading the standings, does not finish better than third. With less than seven hours to go, the R1 ridden by Marvin Fritz, Leandro Mercado and Karel Hanika is in fourth place, on the same lap as Honda FCC TSR, which sits ahead in third. Threatening BMW’s success is Suzuki SERT, despite a nighttime crash by Sylvain Guintoli.

The category for bikes closely derived from production models is also on a knife’s edge. The BMW of the Champion-Hert Powered by MRP team was stopped in the box for two hours, in the dead of night, after cruising unchallenged in the early stages. The lead was taken over by the Honda of the Voijcik team, driven forward by Jordi Torres. A brilliant performance as well from Honda No Limits, one of the two Italian teams on the grid: they are running second in class, two laps down on the leaders, and therefore still in the hunt for overall victory. Meanwhile, the dream of Aprilia Revo M2 has already faded, after a Bol d’Or marked by Kevin Calia’s crash during the opening stint.

Last year BMW had the World Championship in hand, but it went up in smoke 29 minutes from the end due to an engine failure, handing the title to Yamaha YART. This time too, Endurance looks set to deliver a finale rich in pathos: to know who will ascend to the throne, we’ll have to wait for the checkered flag at 3 p.m. today.

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