R1 RACE Project Leader Interview Vol.3

This is volume three of an interview with the project leader of development for the R1 RACE model, Itaru Fukushima. He shared about the development status of the YZF-R1 since 2019, about the new winglets, how the preparations for the 8 Hours are proceeding, and what goals are in place for the big event.

Current State of Development and Suzuka 8 Hours Goals

With many changes taking place in the racing world in the six years since 2019, the Suzuka 8 Hours has undergone some incremental changes itself. While the focus of development for JSB is outright sprint speed, this is not the case for the Suzuka 8 Hours. There, speed is still important, but the keys to victory are keeping a consistent pace and minimizing pit stops as much as possible.

R1 project leader Fukushima-san looked at the gap since 2019, saying "In recent years, we've seen YART's three riders make a splash at the 8 Hours with qualifying times in the 2:05 range. So, since we last competed in 2019, the evolution of both the bikes and riders has seen lap times get even quicker. We have to keep our race plan in mind and build our bikes based on that trend of getting faster. 

"To do that, we have to build a bike that's reliable and will handle the way the riders want it to. Riders are extremely talented and can adapt to the bike, but in the end, it still needs to respond to their inputs in the right way. It's so important for the rider to be able to trust the bike when they're riding it. I believe that this trust stems from what I mentioned earlier about the base level performance of acceleration and deceleration, and we're continuing to improve that."

One more key element in endurance racing is pit work. "We haven't competed as a factory team since 2019, and to be honest, we haven't had the chance to make progress with our pit work. However, we're working with YART, who are regular EWC competitors, and they're sharing their knowledge with us to help us get up to speed," says Fukushima. 

The current R1 is based on a chassis that debuted in 2015, so it is one of the oldest superbikes still competing. Even so, it continues to show its potential at the forefront of the sport, evidenced by winning seven consecutive JSB titles, Locatelli taking his first win in WorldSBK this season, and YART winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in EWC.

"In the 8 Hours, regular EWC teams, currently led by YART, are very strong and very fast. But there are also special entry teams like ours, so we expect the competition to be even tougher than it was in 2019. We won't spend too much time on what our rivals are doing though, because we just want to focus on preparing ourselves to achieve our target number of laps. That's how we achieve our goal of winning the race, so we'll approach it with a 'normal' mindset. We want to prove that the R1 is still capable of competing in the Suzuka 8 Hours and that it has top-level performance. I hope everyone will be cheering for us in the race!"