Tokyo — Bridgestone Corporation today announced that it will supply tires to F.C.C. TSR Honda and YART Yamaha Official EWC Team in the FIM (Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme) Endurance World Championship (EWC).
The two teams will feature Bridgestone RACING BATTLAX tires developed during the company’s entries into the All Japan Road Race Championship JSB1000, the Suzuka 8 Hours Endurance Race, and other several top level international races. In endurance races, tire performance and durability over the length of the race is essential to the motorcycle’s performance, and can be the difference between victory and defeat.
The EWC is a worldwide championship competition consisting of five endurance races that take place across the globe. The series will visit France twice, and will also make stops in Germany, Slovakia, and Japan to close out the season. This series’ races last between 8 and 24 hours, during which each team’s riders (up to three riders per team) alternate riding duties, with the team covering the longest distance in the given timeframe being declared as the winner. Points are awarded based on the teams’ performances in each race, and the team that accrues the most points over the 5-race schedule is named the champion. The current season is already underway and will end with the Suzuka 8 Hours Endurance Race, which is held at Japan’s Suzuka Circuit, in July 2017.
Statement from Bridgestone Representative
Michihiro Suzuki – Vice President and Officer:
The EWC is currently the only global motorcycle road race championship series in which tires are supplied by multiple manufacturers. I greatly appreciate the fact that F.C.C. TSR Honda and YART Yamaha Official EWC Team have chosen Bridgestone tires to ride on in this fiercely competitive series of races. I am committed to doing everything in my power to ensure that these two highly capable teams are able to deliver their best performance, and I look forward to seeing both teams place in the higher ranks of this season. Moreover, I am proud that the Suzuka 8 Hours Endurance Race, a race Bridgestone helps to promote, has been chosen to be the final race of this EWC season. This will be the 40th year of the Suzuka race. In light of this momentous occasion, we will continue to provide our full support to make sure that a Bridgestone-supplied team wins this race for a 12th consecutive time.
Statements from Team Representatives
(1) Masakazu Fujii – General Director of F.C.C. TSR Honda:
It is a marathon race like life itself. It is a race that keeps running at 300km/h for 24 hours through the day and night, and the cold and hot. Needless to say, the tire is our team’s most important product under such strenuous conditions. We aim to become No.1 in the world with Bridgestone. We will never give up, no matter what happens to us as a team; we challenge to run and stay the course at the end of the race with fortitude.
(2) Mandy Kainz – Team Manager of YART Yamaha Official EWC Team:
YART is very happy to join the racing family of world’s largest tire and rubber company Bridgestone Corporation. We worked already in Suzuka 2014 together and since this moment our team, staff and riders, especially Broc Parkes, who was in MotoGP with Bridgestone, pushed to make their dream reality to be partners of Bridgestone to share and develop Bridgestone’s MotoGP technologies. YART was supported very strong by YMC to join Bridgestone. With our very young international team with Kohta Nozane (Japan), the German SBK Champion Marvin Fritz and the very experienced former GP rider Broc Parkes from Australia, we are sure to be very soon on the top of the timesheets. We are looking in a long-term great and successful future.
Going forward, Bridgestone will make ongoing contributions to the development of the automobile industry and motorsports culture by supporting races around the world and participating in a wide variety of motorsports activities.