24H Bol D'Or - Race release

Last weekend on the racetrack of Magny Cours took place the last race of the Endurance World Championship.
It was the Bol D'Or, well known to all the Endurance enthusiasts and eventually again part of the Championship.
The Bol d'Or is definitely important: a huge crowd comes every year at the racetrack to follow an amazing and thrilling race that offers every time great emotions.
24 hours of racing it's something hard to believe, hard even to imagine, and this is the soul of the Bol d'Or.
This year in order to add some thrill an unpredictable weather changed the conditions after the tests held just the previous days, and the event was amazing and breath-taking.

The race started at 3pm, and until the following morning everything was proceeding more or less quiet, with two Pirelli bikes in second and third position following closely the Official Suzuki SERT team.
The French team GMT94 was closing the gap from his third position, making great times lap after lap and approaching Yamaha Austria (YART).
The teams were making sessions of basically 50 minutes, then stopping to refuel, change tyres, and swap from a rider to the other.
Then came the rain, with riders moving from the Pirelli DIABLO SUPERBIKE, slick, to the WET and RAIN tyres, with a racetrack changing from wet to dry in a few moments and back again.

The race of Yamaha GMT finished with only 3 hours to go, when they were occupying the second position and Sebastian Gimbert was riding really fast. An engine failure made him crash, and he started running pushing the bike to the garage. A huge effort if you have raced for 21 hours, but unfortunately useless as the bike couldn't go back in the track.
Yamaha Austria R1 then finished 2nd, and finished in the same position also in the World Championship.

For this kind of races it's important for the teams to have a good support from the tyre manufacturers: changing the temperatures from the day to the night and changing the weather conditions, it's important not only to chose the right time for the changes, but also the right tyres.
A team uses for this race more than 30 sets of tyres, and that's why for Pirelli a dozen of people were involved at the race in France.

The season ends with 7 teams using Pirelli tyres in the top 15 positions, proving once again the great performances offered by the Pirelli DIABLO SUPERBIKE tyres, both 16,5 and 17", and how these tyres born in the SBK World Championship find their strength in their ability to suit different bikes and different riders, also with a set up like in the Endurance that needs to be a compromise between the different riders and thus not so fine tuned.

Pos'n	No.	Team	Nat.	Bike	Class	Total
1	1	Suzuki Castrol Team	FRA	Suzuki GSX-R1000	SBK	185
2	7	Yamaha Austria Racing Team	AUT	Yamaha YZF-R1	SBK	150
3	3	Yamaha Phase One Endurance	GBR	Yamaha YZF-R1	SBK	103
4	8	Bolliger Team Switzerland Kawasaki	SUI	Kawasaki ZX10R	SBK	76
5	12	Team Fagersjo-el Suzuki	SWE	Suzuki GSX-R1000	SBK	68
6	55	National Motos Honda	FRA	Honda CBR1000RR	SBK	50
7	666	Diablo 666 Bolliger Kawasaki	GBR	Kawasaki ZX10R	SBK	40
8	21	RMT 21 Racing Honda	GER	Honda CBR1000RR	SBK	36
9	6	Shell Endurance Academy Yamaha	GBR	Yamaha YZF-R1	SBK	33
10	100	Team Endurance Moto 45 Suzuki	FRA	Suzuki GSX-R1000	STK	29
11	44	Suzuki No Limits & R.T. Suzuki	ITA	Suzuki GSX-R1000	SBK	27
12	94	Yamaha GMT94	FRA	Yamaha YZF-R1	SBK	22*
13	111	Team Kawasaki France	FRA	Kawasaki ZX10R	SBK	22
14	99	Team Acropolis Zone Rouge Yamaha 99	BEL	Yamaha YZF-R1	SBK	21
15	18	Suzuki Sapeurs Pompiers	FRA	Suzuki GSX-R1000	SPR	20

Wild card: raced only 24H Le Mans and 24h Bol d'or