Suzuka 8 Hours: For Ale Delbianco, the dream ends at dawn—his Yamaha is destroyed

Wet start for the 47th edition of the Suzuka 8 Hours, the third round of the Endurance World Championship. Drama right away with many crashes, oil on the track, and the safety car neutralizing the race already during the first stint.

Unfortunately, the first twist directly involves Alessandro Delbianco, who had been on fire in qualifying, dragging the Marc VDS/KM99 team’s Yamaha into third place. The Italian Superbike champion was the fastest Yamaha rider, including factory men Jack Miller and Andrea Locatelli. Only Jonathan Rea on the HRC Honda and Michael van der Mark on the factory BMW were ahead of him. His teammate Florian Marino, entrusted with the first driving stint, crashed after just three laps at Turn 3, half-destroying the YZF-R1. The French rider managed to bring the bike back to the box, then it rejoined ten laps down with Ale Delbianco. In his first stint at Suzuka he clocked formidable times, on par with Jonathan Rea and once again faster than the factory Yamahas.

Around the 45-minute mark the 8 Hours was neutralized with two safety cars entering the track due to oil laid down right in the middle of 130R and then through the following section of the chicane by the Honda Tati Team. The incident caused (among others) a spill for Astemo Pro Honda, one of HRC’s most competitive satellite squads.

In the first stint the hot favorite HRC Honda, starting with Takumi Takahashi, found itself battling the AutoRace Use BMW with a blazing Naomichi Uramoto. On the wet track the two riders swapped the lead multiple times, pulling about six seconds on the rest of the field before the safety car, which then bunched the pack back up. After the pit stop it was Sylvain Guintoli’s turn, but he couldn’t match Uramoto’s momentum, lapping 4–5 seconds slower than his teammate!

The wet obviously changes strategies and fuel consumption, but the HRC Honda juggernaut doesn’t waver. Takahashi handed over to Jonathan Rea with an eight-second lead over BMW Motorrad, which sent Markus Reiterberger out to replace an excellent van der Mark. Still in the mix are the two leading Yamahas, with World Champion YART ahead of the factory Yamaha, where Andrea Locatelli took over from Jack Miller. The two R1s had a twelve-second cushion, immediately erased by the second safety car appearance. It’s going to be a very long edition...

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