FIM World Endurance Suzuka 8 Hours: Preview (updated regularly)

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The 8 Hours of Suzuka “Coca Cola Zero”, the fourth round of the 2009 Qtel FIM Endurance World
Championship will start from next Thursday with the free practice on the Japanese track. The
qualifying session is scheduled for Friday. On Saturday will take place the “Special Stage”, a
Superpole open to two riders of the ten best teams, and this will reallocate the first ten places on
the final starting grid. The race will start Sunday at 11:30 AM (GMT + 9) and the race will finish at
7:30 PM, slightly after the sunset at Suzuka.

58 teams are expected to race. To compete against the best private and semi-official Japanese
teams will be a hard challenge for the three permanent teams who will race at Suzuka this year.
Championship leader Yamaha Austria Racing Team is one of the most experimented. The Austrian
Yamaha team has regularly been in the top 15 since the 2004 8 Hours of Suzuka, except when
they took the thirteenth place in 2007 after their bike faced some overheating problems. In
eleventh place last year, YART aims to enter the top 10 this year to increase their gap in the
championship. In the Yamaha Austria team there are three riders familiar with Suzuka, Igor
Jerman, Steve Martin and Gwen Giabbani.

After some uncertainty due to financial reasons, Phase One Endurance will finally be at Suzuka. The
British Yamaha team also has a long race history at Suzuka, although they have never been as
successful as YART. However, Phase One Endurance has been several times in the top 20 since the
2004 8 Hours of Suzuka. Pedro Vallcaneras, twelfth last year with Folch Endurance, Damian Cudlin,
thirteenth last year with Phase One Endurance and British Superbike rider Graeme Gowland will
ride the Yamaha Phase One Endurance.

BK Maco Moto Racing Team took seventeenth place last year at Suzuka. With Dani Ribalta, twelfth
last year with Folch Endurance, Jason Pridmore and Victor Carrasco, the Slovakian Yamaha team
hopes to score great points and make a significant move in the championship. Once announced at
Suzuka, RMT 21 Racing won’t be at Suzuka this year after two bikes were destroyed during the
practice and the race last month at Albacete.

To achieve their goals, the three permanent teams will have to race against the best Japanese
teams, in the likes of the Honda FCC TSR of Kosuke Akiyochi, Shinichi Itoh and Yusuke Teshima,
the Suzuki Yoshimura of Daisaku Sakai, Kasuki Tokudome and Nobuatsu Aoki and the Honda
Dream Sakurai of Chojun Kameya and Australian rider Josh Brookes.

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FIM World Endurance

The fourth round of the Qtel FIM Endurance World Championship will take place on Sunday, the 26
July in Suzuka, Japan. Although the 8 Hours of Suzuka “Coca Cola Zero” are part of the Qtel FIM
Endurance World Championship and are eagerly awaited by the local Japanese teams, it is not
compulsory for the permanent teams to enter this particular race this season. Only the very best of
them can hope to score a few points against very fast local teams who often have official support
from the Japanese factories. Last year at Suzuka, the Yamaha Austria Racing Team finished in
eleventh place ahead of Folch Endurance, Phase One Endurance and the Suzuki Endurance Racing
Team.

We will see once again on the Suzuka starting grid the Yamaha Austria Racing Team, the
championship leader, with Igor Jerman, Steve Martin and Gwen Giabbani; BK Maco Moto Racing
Team on Yamaha with Jason Pridmore, Dani Ribalta and Victor Carrasco; the Honda RMT 21 Racing
Team of Matti Seidel and Olivier Depoorter. Phase One Endurance , announced in Suzuka, will not
finally travel to Japan for financial reasons. There will be no Superstock class this year at Suzuka:
the Japanese round is not part of the FIM World Cup calendar, dedicated to this class.

In order to score some points and take advantage in the championship against other teams
entered for the Qtel FIM Endurance World Championship, these permanent teams will have to
battle against fifty-five Japanese teams. Although, due to the world economic crunch, the Japanese
factories won’t enter their traditional official teams, the competition will still be very harsh between
the semi-official teams, who often have some support from the factories. Contested on 14 June,
the 300 km of Suzuka, also often called “the road to the 8 Hours” gave a foresight of the favourites
for victory at the end of July. The Honda FCC TSR of Kosuke Akiyoshi and Shinichi Ito, won the
race ahead of Honda Musashi RT Arc Pro of Tatsuya Yamaguchi and Yoshiteru Konishi and the
Suzuki Yoshimura of Daisaku Sakai and Kasuki Tokudome. These three teams will be present at
Suzuka on 26 July.

The presence of female French rider Magali Langlois will be another curiosity this year at Suzuka.
Competing usually in the French Superbike Championship, Magali Langlois will do her first laps this
year at Suzuka with the Japanese team Clever Wolf Racing on a Yamaha.