Suzuki Castrol: Oschersleben 24H Winners and 2005 FIM World Endurance Champions - Kawasakis Second and Third...

The Oschersleben 24 Hours round of the FIM World Endurance Championship has been won by Suzuki Castrol. Second place has gone to Kawasaki Bolliger, and third to Kawasaki Diablo.

The race win gives Suzuki Castrol an unbeatable lead in the championship standings; they are 45 points ahead of Kawasaki Bolliger, with only 25 points available for the final round of the year at Vallelunga, Italy, in September.

From the start of qualifying on Thursday it looked as though the race would come down to a four way battle between Suzuki Castrol, Yamaha Austria, Yamaha Phase One Endurance and Kawasaki Bolliger, with only Phase One and the Austrians able to challenge Suzuki Castrol for the championship title.

The race itself was action packed, with Suzuki Castrol and Yamaha Austria both crashing on oil in the opening fifteen minutes of the race. Both riders were able to rejoin the race, but Suzuki Castrol rider Vincent Philippe had injured his left wrist in the fall. With the two fit Suzuki Castrol riders, Keiichi Kitagawa and Matthieu Lagrive, doing back-to-back sessions both Yamaha Austria and Yamaha Phase One saw a chance to pile the pressure onto the Suzuki team. While they could not match Suzuki's lap times, they could possibly force a mistake by the two increasingly tired riders.

Yamaha Phase One paid the price of this blistering pace just before midnight, when their engine failed. Yamaha Austria held second place through the night, but a high-side crash by Thomas Hinterreiter in his first session in daylight on Sunday morning left the bike unrideable.

While all of this was going on, Kawasaki Bolliger and Kawasaki Diablo had been putting in reliable lap after reliable lap. The Bolliger bike made an unplanned stop to replace an exhaust system, and another to change a leaking front fork, but otherwise the two Kawasakis ran a perfect race.

Further down the field, Suzuki No Limits & RT Motor Team, Suzuki Bridgestone Bikers Profi and Suzuki Austria Team 76 all completed the race without major incident. The Aprilia Motociclismo Test team continue to go from strength to strength, with their almost standard bike finishing in seventh place.

Quotes:

Vincent Philippe, Suzuki Castrol, 1st place: "It's strange to win the world championship with a broken hand. It's good that I have ridden in the race; I had a lot of pain but I did five relays so I am happy. I don't think it is possible to be world champion if I don't ride at every race, so I am very happy."

Keiichi Kitagawa, Suzuki Castrol, 1st place: "First of all I would like to thank the team, I've really enjoyed working with them and the other riders. I'm the first Japanese World Endurance Champion so I'm very pleased. Some of my fans have come over from Japan; it's their first time in Europe, and they have really helped to motivate me during the race."

Mr Teramoto, Head of Suzuki France: "One of the most important categories for Suzuki is the sports models, so winning the championship , the world title, is very important for us. Today I am very happy on behalf of all of Suzuki that Suzuki France has won this title, particularly in the 20th anniversary of the GSX-R series."

Marcel Kellenberger, Kawasaki Bolliger, 2nd place: "Qualifying was not so bad for us, and we did nearly the same times in the race. We also had a lot of luck when the other teams had some problems, so the race was very good for us."

James Hutchins, Kawasaki Diablo, 3rd Place: "I've been fighting a bit of a demon having started this race twice and not finished it, so I'm pleased to have conquered it now. With the team only in its second year we're very pleased to be on the podium, and more than proud of what everyone has done to bring us here."

Top Ten Finishers