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SBK, Suzuka 8 Hours: Kawasaki's appeal accepted, victory for Rea and Haslam

STRIKING NEWS - Turnaround in the rankings. The commissioners evaluated the appeal presented by KRT, giving the victory back to the Akashi team.

SBK: Suzuka 8 Hours: Kawasaki's appeal accepted, victory for Rea and Haslam

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3:10pm - OFFICIAL UPDATE - Kawasaki won the Suzuka 8 Hours! The appeal was fully accepted, and the Endurance victory was awarded to Jonathan Rea and Leon Haslam's team, with Toprak Razgatlıoğlu who, despite not having raced, can enjoy the victory together with the rest of the team.

The Suzuka 8 Hours ranking could suffer an incredible turn around less than 3 hours after the end of the race. The red flag that came up late tricked Jonathan Rea, who slipped while he had the victory in the palm of his hand, with almost 15 seconds ahead of Yamaha that, at that moment, had Alex Lowes on the track.

Kawasaki filed an appeal, since they believed the decision would have been deemed an error in assessing the regulation, giving it for granted that Jonathan Rea should have brought the bike back to the pit lanes, like what happens in SBK in similar cases. However, the EWC did not apply this change in regulation, so the victory in the event of a red flag is always assigned to the rider who crosses the finish line when ahead on the last lap, before the flag is raised.

This is the point of the regulation that agrees with Kawasaki. As highlighted in yellow, the riders must immediately slow down and return to the pit lane, without any mention of the need to do so within 5 minutes.

EWC REGULATION IN THE EVENT OF A RED FLAG

There is still no official release, but the rumors from Suzuka all seem to point towards awarding the victory to the official Kawasaki team.

Translated by Leila Myftija
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