Weather: Cloudy with occasional light rain Temperature: 20c Attendance: 12,500. Kyonari and Rae take Suzuka 300km race victory Ryuichi Kyonari and Jonathan Rae raced their CBR100RR to victory in the Suzuka 300km race he at the fast Japanese circuit today as the Anglo – Japanese duo laid solid foundations for their assault on the prestigious 2007 FIM World Endurance “Coca Cola ZERO” Suzuka 8 hours to be held at the circuit on Sunday July 29, 2007. The British Superbike Championship team-mates were followed home by Yoshiteru Konishi of Team HARC-PRO., who finished second. The results meant a one-two finish for Honda in this important race ahead of the Suzuka 8hrs. This year’s “Road to 8hours” Suzuka 300km Endurance Race (referred to as “Suzuka 300km” marked the fourth time this race is held. As the name suggests, the race is widely considered as a prelude to the 30th anniversary Suzuka 8hrs race, with the finals planned this year on July 29, 2007 (Sunday). For running the whole distance of a Suzuka 300km race, it is necessary to make at least one pit stop for refueling. Registration of one rider or up to two riders is possible for each team, and changing the rider midway is allowed. The machines conforming to the regulations of Suzuka 8hrs are used in a Suzuka 300km, for which the starting method in accordance with the Le Mans method has been adopted. All of this literally makes Suzuka 300km a very important race ahead of Suzuka 8hrs, the well-known, intense midsummer race. A press conference announcing the teams for Suzuka 8hrs was also held on the day of the Suzuka 300km finals. Honda announced that TEAM HRC would compete in Suzuka 8hrs as its works team with 2 machines. For the riders, Honda stated that, in addition to the 4 riders competing in Suzuka 300km, HRC may also consider the riders currently taking part in the World Championships Series. Honda fielded the following teams and riders for this year’s Suzuka 300km. As the factory team, TEAM HRC competed in the JSB1000 class with two CBR1000RR’s, just as for the upcoming Suzuka 8hrs. Ryuichi Kiyonari and Jonathan Rea, who both compete in British Super Bike(BSB)races, formed a team wearing No.11. The team of Yusuke Teshima and Tadayuki Okada wore No.33. Kiyonari, last year’s champion in BSB, has again achieved excellent results this season. Rea is another outstanding rider and is a teammate of Kiyonari in BSB. Teshima has competed in the JSB1000 class of All-Japan Championship races this year as a member of TEAM HRC. Pairing up with Teshima was Okada, a veteran rider who formerly competed in World GP races. #778 F.C.C. TSR, the team that won the championship at last year’s Suzuka 8hrs, competed in the superbike (SBK) regulations class of this year’s Suzuka 300km. All the machines of the teams which would compete only in Suzuka 8hrs are required to participate in the JSB1000 class, but because F.C.C. TSR already competed in this year’s QMMF FIM World Endurance Championship Race Rd2 and won points, the team was able to choose to compete in the SBK class in Suzuka 300km. This was an option possible only for the teams with year-round entry in the World Endurance Championship Races, winning points. The rider for the F.C.C. TSR team was Takeshi Tsujimura, who was one of the riders that won the championship last year. Team HARC-PRO., which stood on the podium for two years in a row at Suzuka 8hrs, fielded Yoshiteru Konishi as its rider in this year’s Suzuka 300km. Tatsuya Yamaguchi and Leon Camier were the riders for MORIWAKI MOTUL RACING team, and for Team Sakurai Honda, each of Chojun Kameya and Yuichi Takeda competed independently. Kazuki Tokudome was the sole rider for the Honda DREAM Racing Team. Just like the day before on which the qualifying race was staged, the weather conditions were unstable in the morning with occasional rain on the day of the finals, but at around noon, there were some patches of clear sky from time to time, even though with a lot of clouds. At 13:50, the finals race with 52 laps started with dry surface conditions. Kiyonari, the first rider of TEAM HRC wearing No.11, started from grid No.4, and jumping to the top spot in the first lap, smoothly led the way lap after lap. Tsujimura of F.C.C. TSR was in fifth place, Konishi of Team HARC-PRO. was in 6th place, and Teshima, the first rider of TEAM HRC wearing No.33, was in seventh place, followed by Kameya of Team Sakurai Honda in 8th place, chasing the top group as they finished the first lap. In the 10th lap, Kiyonari in the top spot was passed by Akiyoshi of YOSHIMURA SUZUKI and dropped to No.2, but Tsujimura moved up to fourth place, as did Kameya to fifth place and Teshima to sixth place. Later, in the 18th lap, Kiyonari managed to again pass Akiyoshi in a Degner section and regained the top spot. At this point, Honda riders dominated from the fourth place onward, with Tsujimura, Kameya, Konishi and Teshima running one after another, but raindrops began falling intermittently at around this time from the west side of the course. In the 20th lap, Teshima passed Tsujimura to move up to 4th place. In the 24th lap, Teshima, the first rider of TEAM HRC wearing No.33, entered the pit and a switch was made to Okada, the team’s second rider. Other teams also entered the pit one after another from around this time. In the following 25th lap, Kiyonari with No.11 entered the pit and was replaced by Rea. This was when Akiyoshi of YOSHIMURA SUZUKI, who was battling for the top spot with Kiyonari, suddenly stopped on the course just before entering the pit, and he had to retire from the race. With the rain gradually becoming heavier, Kameya, who had just come out of the pit, fell down at the final corner. As of the 27th lap, by when almost all the machines had entered the pit, Rea of TEAM HRC wearing No.11 continued leading the race, followed by Nakasuga of YSP&PRESTO Racing in 2nd place, Okada with No.11 in 3rd place and Konishi in fourth place. In the 32nd lap, with the rain now becoming heavier, Rea the leader chose the tactic of slowing down the pace to let Nakasuga following him to pass him and grab the top position. His aim was to carefully watch the pace for a while. Immediately after this happened, Okada with No.33, who had run at a fast pace of 2 minutes 10 seconds after taking over and aiming for a 1-2 finish for TEAM HRC, tried to avoid a machine running a lap behind the leaders in the back straight section and fell down. Although Okada did not suffer any serious injury, he had to retire from the race. With the weather conditions recovering late in the race, Rea raised the pace and passed Nakasuga in the main straight of the 41st lap to recapture the top spot. Later, Nakasuga in second place entered the pit once again, and Konishi moved up to second place. The Ryuichi Kiyonari / Jonathan Rea duo of TEAM HRC continued to smoothly lead the race to eventually win the championship, followed by Konishi of HARC-PRO. in the second place. The 1-2 finish in this prelude race ahead of Suzuka 8hrs was a very positive result for Honda. Rider comments. Ryuichi Kiyonari, Team HRC: 1st. “From the start, I was aiming to build a big lead over the rider in 2nd place, but raising the pace was difficult early on in the race. We had a lot of tests in advance and the combination with the tires had improved, so I was confident of a good run if the weather was fine. I was passed by Akiyoshi and it started running midway, so it was a difficult race, but I was able to effectively run on even wet surfaces to increase the pace. This is my second consecutive victory at Suzuka 300km, but being able to team up today with Jonathan Rea, my teammate in BSB, in particular, we had managed to achieve good results from the test stage. We both could run at similar paces today, and I feel really thankful to Jonathan for the result. Our victory today is thanks to all of you fans cheering us on and every member on the team.” Jonathan Rea, Team HRC: 1st. “This was my first endurance race and my first race at Suzuka Circuit, so I was really tense before the race. With a lot of corners, the course was twice as long as the courses in Britain I usually race on, and it was a very difficult course, but I was able to ride with a good rhythm and really enjoyed the race. With the rain, the conditions were also very difficult. I couldn’t tell how the situation with the rain would be, so I was thinking of perhaps entering the pit if the rain continued to become heavier. Fortunately, the rain cleared up after that, and I was able to run at a good pace and win the race. For our win today, I am really grateful to the manager, the whole team and Kinoyari. My stay in Japan this time turned out to be a really good experience for me. I will leave for UK tomorrow, but I do want to pair up with Kinoyari again to compete in Suzuka 8hrs, with the goal of winning the championship.” Yoshiteru Konishi, Team HARC-PRO Honda: 2nd. “It was difficult to see the pit board during the race, and I wasn’t aware for a long while that I was in second place. I did win the second place, but my time was far behind the time of the winning team, and so I’m not really satisfied with my run today. Yasuda was not feeling well today, so suddenly I was to run the whole race by myself. In the difficult conditions, raising the pace was not easy for me. There’s still a lot of work to do if I’m to aim for the top spot on the podium. Together with Yasuda, I think we need to work hard to improve our performance toward Suzuka 8hrs. We’ll make thorough preparations in time for Suzuka 8hrs, with the goal of winning the championship.” Yusuke Teshima Team HRC: dnf. Team mate Okada crashed. “I feel very thankful to everyone concerned for being able to compete as an HRC rider in the All-Japan Championships and Suzuka 300km. We ended up retiring from the race today, but I’m relieved that Tady Okada didn’t suffer any serious injury because of the crash. I was able to run today with Okada, who taught me a lot of things, and the race was really a valuable experience for me. I want to draw on what I learned and the results achieved, and I will give it my best in the tests toward Suzuka 8hours.” Tadayuki Okada Team HRC: dnf – crash. “A 1-2 finish for TEAM HRC was within view today, so it’s really regrettable to finish the race with this result. I want to apologize to the team and Teshima. Trying to pass a machine a lap behind the leaders didn’t work out well, and I ran out onto the dirt and fell down. But we do have a really good teamwork on the whole right now, and things are going in a good direction overall, so I think we had a lot to gain ahead of Suzuka 8hrs. I think Teshima has learned and mastered so much in the past week. I now really look forward to his races in the All-Japan Championships.” Race results. Bike No / Rider name / Team name / Bike / Time (Delay) 1. #11 / Ryuichi Kiyonari & Jonathan Rea / TEAM HRC / Honda CBR1000RR / 1h:55m15.860s 2. #73 / Yoshiteru Konishi / Kyudo.com TEAM HARC-PRO. / Honda CBR1000RR / +48.861s 3. #21 / Katsuyuki Nakasuga / YSP&PRESTO Racing / YAMAHA YZF-R1 / +56.484s 4. #778 / Takeshi Tsujimura / F.C.C.TSR ZIP-FM Racing Team / Honda CBR1000RR / +56.596s 5. #12 / Atsushi Watanabe & Daisaku Sakai / TOSHIMURA SUZUKI with JOMO / SUZUKI GSX-R1000 / +1m17.170 6. #54 / Kazuki Tokudome / Honda DREAM Racing Team / Honda CBR1000RR / +1m23.765s 7. #81 / Norifumi Abe / Y’s gear racing / YAMAHA YZF-R1 / +2m52.242s 8. #19 / Tatsuya Yamaguchi & Leon Camier / MORIWAKI MOTUL Racing / Honda CBR1000RR / 1Lap 9. #87 / Akira Yanagawa / TEAM GREEN / KAWASAKI ZX-10R / 1Lap 10. #5 / Satoru Iwata & Yoshiyuki Sugai / F.C.C. TSR EUROSPORT BENELUX / Honda CBR1000RR / 1Lap