Yamaha Austria on the podium for the World Endurance Final at Doha

The Monster Yamaha Austria Racing Team fought hard last weekend for the 8 Hours of Doha to secure a second place finish on the podium for the last race of the 2010 FIM World Endurance Championship. Riders Igor Jerman, Steve Martin and Gwen Giabbani put in strong performances over the qualifying and scored third place on the grid for the race. Martin put in the fastest of the Superpole laps with a 2’02.398. The team battled for the lead, running an equal pace as the race leaders until a forced tyre change with Giabbani onboard relegated them to second, four laps adrift of the lead at the finish line. The second place podium helped to deliver the 2009 world champions third in the 2010 final standings.

The team’s results were even more impressive having missed most of the free practice time due to the team’s Yamaha YZF-R1 race bikes being held in Frankfurt and delivered late to the circuit in Qatar by air freight.

The Yamaha France GMT94 Ipone Team had a less fortunate race at Qatar. Despite a promising start rider David Checa crashed twice, the first time from fifth position, costing valuable time returning to the pits for essential repairs to be able to continue. The team eventually took ninth in the overall standings for the 2010 season. They weren’t the only ones to suffer bad luck in Qatar, having finished strongly with a podium at The 24Hours of Bol d’Or, the YMES Folch Endurance Team recorded a DNF at the final round, meaning they finished seventh overall in the championship standings.
Notable by their absence were the Yamaha Biker’s Days Team who did not travel to Qatar to fight for the 2010 Superstock World Endurance title.

Mandy Kainz - Team Manager

"This is a great podium after a tough weekend,"said Team Manager Mandy Kainz. "With this result we’ve moved up from sixth to third in the championship standings, so our difficult season has a better conclusion. We are already focused on next year, we want to bring the World Endurance crown back to Austria!"