2025 Suzuka 8 Hours
Jack Miller to race Suzuka 8H
Jack Miller will be a part of the manufacturing unit Yamaha Racing Crew for the 2025 Suzuka 8 Hours, marking Yamaha’s first official manufacturing unit entry within the occasion since 2019. The transfer comes as a part of the model’s celebrations for its seventieth anniversary, including further significance to their return to one in every of endurance racing’s most prestigious occasions.
Miller already has expertise in endurance racing. He took half within the Suzuka 8 Hours as soon as earlier than in 2017. Although he completed simply off the rostrum in fourth place, he caught the endurance racing bug and fell in love with the outstanding Japanese occasion. He has been dreaming of a return ever since, and he feels all of the extra honoured to have been chosen by Yamaha for the 2025 manufacturing unit line-up.
Jack Miller
“It’s clearly an enormous honour for me to have the ability to characterize Yamaha on the Suzuka 8 Hours this 12 months. It’s a race I’ve been wanting to return to since 2017 once I completed fourth, dropping to Yamaha that point. It’s a giant pleasure that I get to trip that Yamaha R1 motorbike this time and characterize the manufacturing unit Yamaha Racing Crew in Japan at such a prestigious race. Like I stated, I’ve been dreaming of this race, and to have the chance to come back again with such a robust staff is an enormous pleasure. I stay up for hopefully a great consequence for them at house and receiving some large help from the Japanese followers.”
Yamaha final gained the Suzuka 8 Hours in 2018 with Honda taking victory for the previous three years to increase its file to 30 wins.
Miller might be joined by seasoned Suzuka 8 Hours rider Katsuyuki Nakasuga, who performed an integral half in Yamaha Manufacturing unit Racing Crew’s four-consecutive victories (2015-2018) and can also be a 12-time All Japan Highway Race JSB1000 Champion. Yamaha’s third rider for the 2025 Suzuka 8 Hours occasion might be chosen from Yamaha’s present crop of WorldSBK riders, with an announcement to comply with shortly.
The appointed Crew Supervisor for the manufacturing unit entry is a rider who himself contested within the 1999 Suzuka 8 Hours and took the All Japan Highway Racing Superbike title that very same 12 months: Wataru Yoshikawa, one in every of Yamaha’s iconic stars of the Nineties.
The Yamaha Racing Crew will full two personal check days on July 3-4 earlier than they formally return to motion on the forty sixth “Coca-Cola” Suzuka 8 Hours Endurance Race on Friday, August 1 when apply and qualifying get underway forward of the normal Prime Ten Trial on Saturday and the Race on Sunday.
Tetsu Ono – Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.‘s Motorsports Technique Division Common Supervisor
“This 12 months marks the seventieth anniversary of Yamaha’s founding, and our manufacturing unit entry within the Suzuka 8 Hours Endurance Race is a significant a part of our commemorative racing programme. With the aim of writing a brand new web page in our 70-year historical past of taking over challenges and to ship pleasure to our followers worldwide who’ve supported us all through these 70 years, we’ve been on the lookout for the perfect rider line-up to win the Suzuka 8 Hours. I’m now proud to announce that our second rider might be present MotoGP common Jack Miller.
“Miller has been a vital a part of our double manufacturing unit line-up in MotoGP. For the reason that opening spherical of the season, he has contributed not simply to testing and improvement however has additionally spurred on the whole Yamaha staff along with his combating perspective and powerful presence. Along with his earlier expertise within the Suzuka 8 Hours he’s the proper match for the Yamaha Racing Crew as we purpose for victory in 2025.
“Simply as he already does in MotoGP, Miller will carry to the staff his expertise, information, ardour, and combating spirit. With Miller in our line-up, we’re aiming to placed on a race that might be remembered by followers around the globe. The staff’s third rider might be introduced at a later date, so please keep watch over future bulletins.”
Yamaha’s Suzuka 8 Hours Historical past
Yamaha‘s manufacturing unit effort at Suzuka started in earnest in 1985. Earlier than 2002, Yamaha had at occasions fielded worldwide star-studded full manufacturing unit groups and had hoisted the winner‘s trophy excessive beneath the firework-filled skies at Suzuka a complete of 4 occasions: in 1987, 1988, 1990, and 1996.
From 2003 onward, Yamaha discontinued having full manufacturing unit staff entries and restricted itself to a help function helping Europe-based Yamaha groups competing as a part of the FIM Endurance World Championship.
Nonetheless, in 2015 Yamaha introduced again its full manufacturing unit staff to focus on its sixtieth anniversary and the discharge of an all-new YZF-R1. After taking Yamaha’s fifth win on the Suzuka 8 Hours that 12 months in gorgeous style following a 19-year drought, the Yamaha Manufacturing unit Racing Crew was nigh unbeatable, successful the race once more the following two years for a hat-trick of victories. With 2018 marking the YZF-R1’s twentieth anniversary, a particular red-and-white race livery was run to commemorate the unique R1, and the manufacturing unit staff secured a record-setting fourth straight win.
In 2019, the Yamaha Manufacturing unit Racing Crew sported a revival of the color scheme utilized by the legendary 1985 Yamaha TECH21 Crew, the origin of Yamaha’s now iconic #21 race quantity. The manufacturing unit squad battled for victory the whole race. Although a record-resetting fifth consecutive win eluded the staff, the race was an exhilarating addition to the storied historical past of the Suzuka 8 Hours.
In 2020 and 2021, the Suzuka 8 Hours was cancelled as a result of international COVID-19 pandemic, nevertheless it returned to the EWC calendar in 2022. Nonetheless, the Yamaha Manufacturing unit Racing Crew didn’t participate within the 2022, 2023, or 2024 editions, however Yamaha nonetheless landed a podium.
In 2024, the Yamalube YART Yamaha EWC Official Crew (YART) secured their first pole place since 2012 and 2013 (each set by Nakasuga) because of Marvin Fritz recording a 2’05.130s lap within the Prime 10 Trial. It was Yamaha’s first pole since 2017 and 2019 (additionally each set by Nakasuga).
Niccolò Canepa was chosen to trip the opening stint for the Race. Canepa, Fritz, and Karel Hanika, confirmed grit within the 8-hour competitors, using in excessive temperatures and excessive humidity. Ultimately, YART accomplished 220 laps, the identical because the chief, which set a file for essentially the most laps ever recorded in a Suzuka 8 Hours race. The YART staff completed on the rostrum in second place, 7.86s from the winners (after the 40-second penalty that the ‘Crew HRC with Japan Submit’ obtained for violating a rule throughout their remaining pit cease). It was the YART staff’s first time visiting the Suzuka 8 Hours rostrum.
As a part of Yamaha’s seventieth anniversary celebrations, the manufacturing unit Yamaha Racing Crew will make a comeback within the famend Suzuka 8 Hours occasion this 12 months with the rider line-up consisting of 12-time All Japan Highway Race JSB1000 Champion and Suzuka 8 Hours legend Katsuyuki Nakasuga, MotoGP-star Jack Miller, and one in every of Yamaha’s WorldSBK riders (to be introduced shortly).
The appointed Crew Supervisor for the manufacturing unit staff, Wataru Yoshikawa, is a rider who himself contested the 1999 Suzuka 8 Hours on the YZF-R7 along with successful an All Japan title on that iconic machine. He was one in every of Yamaha’s star manufacturing unit riders within the Nineties and is to many a consultant of that period of racing.
The 2025 staff will race a specifically liveried YZF-R1, adorned with the normal #21. The particular new design is impressed by Yamaha Racing Crew’s YZF-R7 that Yoshikawa rode in 1999. The YZF-R7 mannequin was first launched in that 12 months in a restricted version of 500 items worldwide.
In 2025, the staff is known as ‘Yamaha Racing Crew’ as this identify was utilized by Yamaha’s manufacturing unit Suzuka 8 Hours staff within the late Nineties. The 2025 staff brand is a model of the brand used on the time with an up to date motif. Rider and staff employees clothes and the look of the staff’s storage are additionally coordinated to replicate the 1999 design.
Yamaha’s Suzuka 8 Hours Victories
1987 – Shiseido TECH21 Racing Crew – YZF750 (Martin Wimmer, Kevin Magee)
1988 – Crew Fortunate Strike Roberts – YZF750 (Kevin Magee, Wayne Rainey)
1990 – Shiseido TECH21 Racing Crew – YZF750 (Tadahiko Taira, Eddie Lawson)
1996 – Yamaha Racing Crew – YZF750 (Colin Edwards, Noriyuki Haga)
2015 – Yamaha Manufacturing unit Racing Crew – YZF-R1 (Katsuyuki Nakasuga, Pol Espargaró, Bradley Smith)
2016 – Yamaha Manufacturing unit Racing Crew – YZF-R1 (Katsuyuki Nakasuga, Alex Lowes, Pol Espargaró)
2017 – Yamaha Manufacturing unit Racing Crew – YZF-R1 (Katsuyuki Nakasuga, Alex Lowes, Michael van der Mark)
2018 – Yamaha Manufacturing unit Racing Crew – YZF-R1 (Katsuyuki Nakasuga, Alex Lowes, Michael van der Mark)
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