The final round of the 2013 FIM Endurance World Championship got underway today with the first qualifying sessions for the 24 Heures Moto at Le Mans. The Honda TT Legends currently lie in provisional eighth for Saturday’s race start at the legendary French circuit. Provisional pole was secured by SERT.

The Honda TT Legends took to the track in a determined frame of mind and it paid off, with all four riders posting laps in the 1m39s bracket and within a few tenths of each other. Michael Dunlop set the fastest lap of 1.39:486, but as the listed fourth rider his times do not count towards the overall ranking. The combined average of the lap times set by Michael Rutter, Simon Andrews and John McGuinness (1.39:794) sees the team place eighth.

With just 0.1 second keeping the Honda TT Legends from a top five position, the team is even more determined to improve its performance in the final qualifying session, which begins at 11.20 CET tomorrow morning.


Neil Tuxworth - team manager

This year’s hard work is starting to pay off and we’re seeing an improved performance all round. The riders did well today and it’s good to have them all so close to each other in lap times. The whole team is upbeat and determined to return a good result and because of that we find ourselves only a tenth off fifth place. Our aim now is to do everything we can to scale our times by that tenth to rank fifth or sixth.

John McGuinness

A good start really. We’re definitely in the ball park. All four riders are within 0.4 of each other and we can only improve so I think we’ll be in a good strong position to start the race. The weather was good, the bike is good and the team is in great spirits.

Michael Rutter

I’m glad we had the test session on Tuesday as it meant we got a chance to learn the track a bit before we got started properly. It paid off as we’ve all done a 1.39 lap, which was the aim for today. Now we just need to go a bit faster tomorrow and hopefully we can get in the top five.

Simon Andrews

I’ve had a good day. We set out to achieve a lap time and we all reached it so that’s promising. The bike is going in the right direction, as is the mood of the team and we’re all looking forward to seeing what we can do tomorrow. I’m happy with my time, particularly in 60 bikes worth of traffic, but being so close to fifth is a great incentive to go quicker tomorrow.

Michael Dunlop

It’s been a good day for the team overall as we achieved what we set out to achieve. I’m learning the track and we’re making good progress with the bike. We just need to find a bit more tomorrow to get a bit higher on the timesheet.


Championship standings

1 Suzuki Endurance Racing Team 84 pts SUZUKI
2 Monster Energy Yamaha-YART 71 pts YAMAHA
3 Yamaha France GMT94 Michelin Yamalube 60 pts YAMAHA
4 Team R2CL 44 pts SUZUKI
5 Bolliger Team Switzerland 8 44 pts KAWASAKI
6 SRC Kawasaki 40 pts KAWASAKI
7 MuSashi RT HARC-PRO 35 pts HONDA
8 Maco Racing Team 30 pts YAMAHA
9 Yoshimura Suzuki Racing Team 29 pts SUZUKI
10 BMW Motorrad France Thevent 99 29 pts BMW
11 Team Kagayama 25 pts SUZUKI
12 Flembo Leader Team 21 pts KAWASAKI
13 Team Space Moto 37 20 pts SUZUKI
14 National Motos 19 pts HONDA
15 Honda Team Asia 16 pts HONDA
16 Honda TT Legends 16 pts HONDA
17 RAC 41 Yam Avenue Ipone 15 pts YAMAHA
18 TOHO Racing with MORIWAKI 14 pts HONDA
19 Honda Kumamoto Racing 12 pts HONDA
20 Team 18 Sapours Pompiers 11 pts KAWASAKI
21 FMA Assurances 11 pts HONDA
22 SPE Samurai 9 pts SUZUKI
23 EVA RT TEST TYPE-01 SynergyForceTRICKSTAR 9 pts KAWASAKI
24 Team Dunlop Motors Events 8 pts SUZUKI
25 RS-ITOH&ASIA 8 pts KAWASAKI
26 Honda Hamamatsu ESCARGOT&PGR&H-TEC(E) 7 pts HONDA
27 Confia Lunasol Japan 6 pts SUZUKI
28 Team38 PS-K 5 pts KAWASAKI
29 TEAMJP Dogfighter Yamaha 4 pts YAMAHA
30 Honda Ryokuyoukai Racing 3 pts HONDA
31 Moto Map Supply 2 pts SUZUKI
32 Iwata Racing Family 1 pts YAMAHA
33 YamashinaKawasaki & BusinessRalliart 0 pts KAWASAKI
34 Winner Z-Tech 0 pts SUZUKI
35 Team Vital Spirit 0 pts BMW
36 Team Sugai Racing Japan 0 pts DUCATI
37 Team Little Wing 0 pts BMW
38 Team KARBAR cafe Racing from SHIGA 0 pts KAWASAKI
39 Team Etching Factory 0 pts YAMAHA
40 SNDheater Human-Revo Drag Roadway ACtech 0 pts SUZUKI
41 RS Garage Harada Himeji 0 pts KAWASAKI
42 Motorrad Toyota Nagasaka Racing 0 pts BMW
43 Motobox Kremer Racing by Shell Advance 0 pts SUZUKI
44 MOTOBUM-Ishigaki Island BEEF & TUNA 0 pts HONDA
45 LA BELLEZZA SPEED&KUMAMON 0 pts DUCATI
46 KTM Hamaguchi Bakuon Racing 0 pts KTM
47 IMT Satoracing 0 pts YAMAHA
48 Honda Suzuka Racing Team 0 pts HONDA
49 Honda Sayama Racing&Hamamatsu&H-TEC (E) 0 pts HONDA
50 Honda Koyokai DREAM Racing Team 0 pts HONDA
51 Honda EG Racing 0 pts HONDA
52 Honda DREAM Takasaki B'WISE R.T 0 pts HONDA
53 Honda DREAM RT Sakurai Honda 0 pts HONDA
54 Hamamatsu Team Titan 0 pts SUZUKI
55 Hamamatsu 8H Team 0 pts YAMAHA
56 HINOSEIKI-Iwaki&T2 with Autoboy 0 pts SUZUKI
57 Dogfish O-TEC Suzuka 0 pts HONDA
58 DOGHOUSE & Higuchi Legal Office 0 pts SUZUKI
59 Banner Racing H.K.C 0 pts DUCATI
60 B-Square Racing & Osaka SAM-RT 0 pts KAWASAKI

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