Team Yoshimura Suzuki’s Atsushi Watanabe and World Superbike Championship contender Yukio Kagayama raced their GSX-R1000 to victory in the Suzuka 300km Endurance race in Japan on Sunday. Watanabe started the 52-lap race in a lowly 20th position but carved through to fifth place by lap eight, passing SERT Suzuki’s Keiichi Kitagawa just before pitting for tyres and a rider change at half distance. Kagayama took over the Yoshimura Suzuki holding fourth position, more than 30 seconds down on leader Tohru Ukawa (Honda). But on lap 28, a big accident forced the pace car onto the circuit after one of the machines crashed and caught fire. The incident cost the SERT squad dearly and team rider Vincent Phillipe lost more than a minute which they were unable to claw back when the race resumed. Kagayama moved from fourth to second and then into the lead on lap 44 which he held until the flag. Said Kagayama: “The Yoshimura Suzuki is very different to my Alstare World Superbike but myself and Watanabe got the machine set up in a very short space of time. All the Yoshimura parts worked very well and the machine ran very fast throughout the event. Last year, we were beaten by the Honda factory squad so this year we wanted revenge!” Fujio Yoshimura added: “This was a very exciting race and we are very pleased to beat Honda for the win! Today, Watanabe missed the start but raced at 100% and never gave up. Kagayama’s performance was also fantastic and he did a great job for our team.” Suzuka 300km Endurance Results: 1 Atsushi Watanabe/ Yukio Kagayama (Yoshimura Suzuki), 2 Tohru Ukawa/ Ryuichi Kiyonari ( Factory Honda), 3 Noaki Matsudo (Moriwaki Honda), 4 Takeshi Tsujimura (TSR Honda), 5 Shin-ichi Nakatomi/ Wataru Yoshikawa (Factory Yamaha), 6 Keiichi Kitagawa/ Vincent Phillipe (SERT Suzuki), 7 Norihiko Fujiwara/ Nobuyuki Osaki (Yamaha), 8 Chojun Kameya (Honda), 9 Tatsuya Yamaguchi/ Kazuki Tokudome (Factory Honda), 10 Hiroki Noda/ Takuma Yamamoto (Honda).