Late Retirement for YART Yamaha at 8 Hours Oschersleben

09-06-2019

Late Retirement for YART Yamaha at 8 Hours Oschersleben

The YART Yamaha EWC Team had a disappointing finish to their 8 Hours Oschersleben race following a strong early performance today. The team had earlier been leading the penultimate round of the Endurance World Championship but retired from first place following a technical failure.

YART riders Broc Parkes, Marvin Fritz and Niccolò Canepa had been on strong form all weekend, carrying their Slovakia success with them to qualify their Yamaha YZF-R1 in fifth place and were comfortably on leading pace. An incident-strewn contest saw multiple safety cars called out, but the trio rode in determined fashion to hold first place before the retirement.

An impressive opening stint by Fritz moved the team into fourth, and before his first stop he had taken the lead within the one-hour mark. Teammate Parkes took over and continued to fight for the lead, pitting from his stint with Canepa assuming riding duties. The Italian rider engaged in some breathless racing to re-take the lead and continued rotating with his teammates in second place.

Fritz was lapping consistently in his third stint towards the end of the seventh-hour mark and the team looked set for a strong win, before a technical issue, forcing the team to retire.

Yamaha extended support teams had mixed fortunes in the race, with VRD Igol Pierret Experiences Yamaha and Moto Ain finishing third and fourth respectively, while WEPOL Racing and 3ART Moto Team 95 both retired.

The YART Yamaha EWC Team sit fifth in the standings and will return to racing at the final EWC round for the Suzuka 8 Hours in July.

Broc Parkes

From my side I’m really happy with how I rode this week and my stints in the race. We were competitive from the start and I felt really comfortable on the bike, we challenged for the lead and it was a strong team performance. I have to thank my teammates Marvin and Niccolò too of course, they did a great job today. Endurance racing is a cruel sport and unfortunately we had bad luck today, I’m sorry for the team that it ended this way but now we have to look forward to Suzuka and give our best efforts again.

Marvin Fritz

Of course we are really disappointed with the result today, especially after the team did such an amazing job all weekend. I had a really good start, finished my stint in first place and we were having a really good fight with the #1 bike for the win. The bike and the Bridgestone tyres worked well and the result would have put us in a good position for Suzuka, but that’s racing. I want to say thank you to all the team and to Broc and Niccolò who rode perfectly. We gave everything on every lap and we are looking forward for the final race at Suzuka.

Niccolò Canepa

It has been a great team effort this weekend, and just disappointing at the end. We were so fast on track and also the guys in the garage were so fast in the pit stops which really helped us manage the gap. It was one of the toughest endurance races I have done because we were pushing really hard every single lap at a really quick pace. I think we could have got the win but second would still have been a great result. It was really disappointing that we had the technical issue with one hour left, but we all know how hard racing can be sometimes. We are too far from the title race now but we can go to Suzuka ready to race and aim to finish the year with a good result.

Mandy Kainz

Today we were unlucky. The guys had been riding well all weekend and their pace was very good for the whole race. We looked set for a really good points finish but things didn’t go our way at the end. The technical issue was very unfortunate, we need to look at what happened and understand it. We deserved better but we can take positives from our performance and aim for a points finish at the finale in Suzuka.