Endurance win for Zongshen

The first round of the FIM World Endurance championship kicked of in Imola this weekend with the Zongshen No.1 Suzuki GSX-R1000 of Warwick Nowland and Stephane Mertens taking the win.

Suzuki GB Phase One’s Olivier Four led the 200 mile race from the start with Zongshen 2’s Igor Jerman and Zongshen 1’s Warwick Nowland the only two riders able to keep up.

The Zongshen riders got the better of Four though when his GSX-R1000 began suffering from tyre wear and after the first round of pit stops the Suzuki GB team had dropped down to third.

The British team eventually finished in second place after the clutch failed on the Zongshen 2 bike forcing them to retire.

The Yamaha Austria team managed to take their new superbike-spec R1 up to third place closely, followed by the French Police Nationale team in its first race using the Suzuki GSX-R1000.

The Yamaha Endurance Moto 38 team looked set for a good finish until the bike ran out of fuel in the closing laps. The Trackdaze Junior team was in fourth place until they broke an exhaust bracket and lost two laps in the pits trying to repair it, eventually finishing in 21st place.