CAFÉ RACER 76

8 Heures de Suzuka : nouvelle victoire de MuSASHi RT HARC-PRO / FCC TSR Honda in front at midpoint

MuSASHi RT HARC-PRO remporte les 8 Heures de Suzuka, deuxième épreuve du Championnat du monde d’Endurance FIM (EWC), pour la seconde fois consécutive. Comme en 2013, Yoshimura Suzuki Shell Advance et Kagayama complètent le podium. Meilleure équipe permanente, le SERT termine huitième.

La 37^ème édition des 8 Heures de Suzuka restera certainement dans les annales pour ses conditions climatiques difficiles et son podium identique à celui de 2013. Suite à des pluies diluviennes qui se sont abattues juste avant le départ, la course a été réduite à 6 heures 55 minutes au lieu des 8 heures initialement prévues.

La Honda n°634, emmenée par l’équipage victorieux de 2013 composé de Leon Haslam, Takumi Takahashi et Michael Van Der Mark, s’impose pour la deuxième année consécutive et enlève son troisième succès à Suzuka (2010 – 2013 – 2014). MuSASHi RT HARC-PRO a bouclé 172 tours.

Bénéficiant de la chute du leader FCC TSR Honda (Akiyoshi) lors du 108^ème tour, après 4h25 de course, MuSASHi RT HARC-PRO a pris définitivement les commandes. Enchaînant les tours rapides, Michael Van Der Mark, auteur du meilleur chrono en 2.08.620, a creusé un écart suffisant pour ressortir en tête aux prochains ravitaillements.

Comme en 2013, Yoshimura Suzuki Shell Advance (Tsuda, Waters et de Puniet) termine deuxième à une minute du vainqueur. Kagayama (Kagayama, Haga et Aegerter) monte sur la troisième marche du podium.

La deuxième place a donné lieu à une belle bagarre entre Yoshimura Suzuki Shell Advance, Kagayama et le YART 07 (Nakasuga, Parkes et Brookes) mais la Yamaha n°07 a dû décrocher suite à un problème de shifter peu après le début de la quatrième heure. Relégué à la huitième place, le YART 07 est revenu à la quatrième place à un tour de MuSASHi RT HARC-PRO.

Le SERT (Delhalle, Nigon et Cudlin), première équipe permanente, termine huitième. Le GMT 94 (Checa, Foray et Gines) se classe neuvième devant le YART. Bolliger Team est 13^ème alors que le team R2CL, privé de Matthieu Lagrive, blessé suite à une chute au warm-up, rallie l’arrivée en 19^ème position. Le team Motors Events finit ses premières 8 Heures de Suzuka à la 25^ème place.

Auteur d’un bon début de course, Honda Endurance Racing (Da Costa, Gimbert et Foray) a rencontré un problème électronique au début de la troisième heure qui a immobilisé la Honda n°111 au box pendant une vingtaine de minutes. Ressorti à la 59^ème place à 13 tours du leader, il termine à la 33^ème place.

Le GMT 94 prend la tête du classement provisoire avec 62 points devant Kawasaki SRC (55 points) qui participera à la prochaine course, les 8 Heures d’Oschersleben. Bolliger Team est troisième avec 51 points. Le SERT remonte à la septième place avec 23 points devancé de trois points par le team R2CL.

Prochaine course : 8 Heures d’Oschersleben, 23 août

Halfway into the race, FCC TSR Honda leads the 8 Hours of Suzuka, round two of the FIM Endurance World Championship (EWC). It is joined in the provisional top three by Yoshimura Suzuki Shell Advance and MuSASHi RT HARC-PRO. The best-placed EWC-registered team is SERT (10th).

A torrential downpour compelled the organisers to postpone the start at Suzuka by 1 hour and 5 minutes. In keeping with the regulations, the race must finish at 7:30pm local time, so this year’s competition will last 6 hours and 55 minutes, instead of eight hours.

The 70 bikes eventually got away at 12:35pm in very wet conditions. TOHO Racing with MORIWAKI led after Lap 1 but was soon passed by FCC TSR Honda which has since only relinquished its lead for a single lap during the first round of refuelling stops.

The second hour saw a dry line begin to form and, after taking over from Akiyoshi, Jonathan Rea (FCC TSR Honda) posted a sequence of strong laps (including the fastest race lap) to build up a sufficiently comfortable cushion to be able re-join in front after the bike’s second stop.

It was about at this time that rain started to fall again, forcing teams to review their strategies and switch to rain tyres. Once everything settled down again, Kagayama appeared in second spot, ahead of Yoshimura Suzuki Shell Advance.

The first safety car interruption occurred a few minutes afterwards and this allowed FCC TSR Honda to extend its advantage to one lap.

With 3½ hours completed, FCC TSR Honda still led by a lap, chased by Yoshimura Suzuki Shell Advance, MuSASHi RT HARC-PRO, Kagayama, YART 07 and Honda Suzuka Racing Team who were all on the same lap. Kagayama fell from second place after its third pit stop, which was 15 minutes before the halfway point

SERT is the best-placed EWC-registered team (10^th), followed by YART (12^th) and GMT 94 (13^th). Bolliger is 18^th and R2CL is 28^th. After spending time inside the top 10 early on, Honda Endurance Racing dropped 20 minutes in the pits after the N°111 Honda encountered an electronics problem during the third hour. Freddy Foray re-joined in 59^th place, 13 laps down.

Legend of Yoshimura Suzuki Shell Advance was the first chief retirement of the 37^th edition of the 8 Hours of Suzuka following a fall while attempting to pass Tsuda (Yoshimura Suzuki Shell Advance) into third place on Lap 7.

With 3 hours and 25 minutes still to go, more rain is expected before the chequered flag comes down at Suzuka.

Sleeping supercar: Why the BMW M1 could take the market by storm

1980 BMW M1 AHG Studie to be auctioned at RM's Monterey sale 2014

It’s a masterpiece of Italian supercar design, boasts German racing technology and is rarer than a Lancia Stratos. BMW M1 prices have been steadily rising in recent years, but is there potential for the value of the Bavarian homologation special to soar into the stratosphere?

Only the finest ingredients

The hour has definitely struck for late Seventies/early Eighties supercars. At recent auctions, icons such as the Lamborghini Countach, Ferrari F40 and Porsche 911 Turbo have brought record results. But what about the BMW M1? It has all the right ingredients to join the club. Created to homologate a Group 4 racing car, the futuristic M1 debuted at the 1978 Paris Motor Show where it certainly caught the crowd’s attention. This was Germany’s fastest sports car, and it wasn’t a Porsche. And with the now-legendary dry-sump M88 straight-six and a radical body, originating from Paul Bracq’s 1972 Turbo Concept and refined by Giorgio Giugiaro, it had all the makings of a success story for BMW.

The fairytale that wasn't meant to be

But the M1 project was plagued with problems from the very beginning. Shortly before production began, Lamborghini (with which BMW had agreed to produce the cars) pulled out of the deal due to financial issues, meaning that the 400 cars that needed building in the following 24 months for homologation purposes were assembled at various locations across Italy and Germany. What’s more, a rule change in Group 4 racing essentially rendered the racing car obsolete, and when a more powerful Group 5 version was eventually produced, it proved unreliable and underpowered. There was the acclaimed Procar series – a race series that followed the F1 circus and pitched Formula One stars against each other in identical BMW M1 racing cars – and the car did enjoy some success across the Pond in the IMSA GTO series. But there was little reason for BMW to celebrate.

Taking its time

So is the M1’s ill-fated racing career the reason why prices haven’t taken off as they have for some of its contemporaries? Jan B. Lühn, a classic car dealer with an M1 Procar currently for sale, thinks that it’s only a matter of time before the M1 catches up. "Supercars of the Eighties are becoming more and more in vogue, especially among the younger buyers," he says. "For me, the M1 is the classic of tomorrow – it’s mechanically reliable and great fun to drive. The M1 is, in my eyes, a style icon and one of the few BMWs attractive to serious collectors."

"BMW is less obvious than some marques, so it's taken longer for collectors to appreciate these cars," says classic car consultant Simon Kidston, who currently has a stunning M1 for sale. But cars such as the M1, which had star quality when new, won't stay under the radar forever. Kidston predicted that the Lamborghini Countach was a car to watch this year, and he was right. "I'd expect steady appreciation for the M1. It's BMW's answer to the supercars from Ferrari and Lamborghini, and rarer than most of its rivals. It's the thinking man's alternative."

The rare AHG Studie

Ask any expert what to look out for when investing in an M1, and so often the reply is that it must be original. But what of this curious model? The car shown here is no racer – it’s a standard M1 with the rare AHG Studie tuning package. Boasting the period BMW works livery, it will go under the hammer at RM’s flagship Monterey sale in August, with an attached estimate of $600,000-$800,000. The retrofit AHG Studie pack was the work of Peter Gartemann, the then-president and owner of the German BMW dealer AHG. Gartemann had an idea to develop a customisation programme that would give the standard M1 the look of the Procar model. It wasn’t just cosmetic changes, either. Under the bonnet, the engine’s 277HP was increased to 350HP, and there were numerous other mechanical modifications including adjustable racing suspension. Consequently, the package was extremely expensive and, as a result, only 10 BMW M1 AHG Studies were built.

RM’s car is one of those 10, and is reputedly in very good original condition having covered a mere 7000km. Alexander Weaver, a specialist at RM, is convinced that the time has come for such supercars as the M1. The generation whose poster cars included the Porsche 930 Turbo and Ferrari 512BB has developed its own particular taste, and can now afford to purchase its own icons.

Could 2014 be the last opportunity to obtain an M1 before prices boom? Jan B. Lühn sums it up nicely, stating that appreciation of BMW’s solitary supercar has been rising since early in 2013, and that prices have some way to go yet. Considering that only some 456 road and race cars were built, many of them now slumbering in large collections, the potential of the M1 seems far from exhausted.

Photos: RM Auctions

A class of their own: 10 homologation specials from the market

It’s thanks to homologation rules that legendary sports cars such as the Ferrari 288 GTO and BMW M1 were conceived. Although ‘a racing car for the road’ has become a tired cliché, in the case of these cars, it couldn’t be more apt. Here are 10 homologation heroes from the Classic Driver Market…