Le Mans, France - Suzuki works riders Vincent Philippe, Anthony Delhalle and Erwan Nigon won the 37th 24 Heures Moto at the weekend - and shared the podium with a South African rider.
Their GSX-R1000 completed 812 laps of the historic 4.185km Sarthe circuit - a total of 3398.2km - at an average speed of 141.6km/h including pit stops, refuelling and tyre changes. It was the 11th time a Suzuki had won at Le Mans, and this year's win ended a four-year run of Kawasaki victories.
Second in the 24-hour endurance test for motorcycles - second in prestige only to the Bol d'Or at Paul Ricard - was the Yamaha Racing R1 of David Checa, Kenny Foray and Mathieu Gines, just two laps down after 24 hours - they got within less than a lap on Sunday morning but dropped back a little in the closing stages.
That, however, was enough to clinch the World Motorcycle Endurance title (its third) for the Yamaha team.
Third went to the Monster Energy Yamaha team of Australian Broc Parkes, Ulsterman Michael Laverty and South African Sheridan Morais, who reeled off 804 laps in the 24 hours - a superb effort against the might of the factory teams, despite an early crash and a ride-through penalty for Parkes.
SUPERSTOCK
The Kawasaki Qatar Endurance Racing Team of Mashel Al Naimi, Alex Cudlin and Ant West held off a determined onslaught from the Suzuki Junior team - Baptiste Quittet, Etienne Masson and Gregg Black - until Sunday morning, when one of the Suzuki riders fell; that cost them a valuable time that they were unable to make up and they finished in fifth overall, two laps behind the jubilant Kawasaki - but at the top of the Superstock points table, grabbing the World title for their class.
A privately-entered (and not very standard) BMW S1000RR entered by Penz 13.com in the Open category for Jason Pridmore, Sylvain Barrier and Glenn Allerton rattled a few cages when Barrier was quickest in free practice and went on to dominate the first hour of the race.
Unfortunately Pridmore and Allerton were consistently two seconds a lap slower than the Frenchman and the BMW eventually dropped back to finish seventh overall on 792 laps, the best performance by an open-class machine.