Vol.02【Road to 8HOURS 2026】Who will win the championship regular team?

The teams that have actually won the championship against the "one-match works teams" mentioned in the previous issue, and of course are still in a position to win, are the World Championship regular teams, i.e., the foreign teams. The regular teams in the World Championship are also classified as works or semi-works teams, and there are five major teams: the four domestic manufacturers plus the top BMW team.

Foreign teams aiming for victory in the 8-hour race, a stronghold of the domestic teams.

These are "F.C.C. TSR Honda France," "YART (=Yamaha Austria Racing Team) Yamaha Official EWC Team," "Yoshimura SERT MOTUL," "Kawasaki WEBIKE Trickster (=KWT)," and "BMW Motorrad World Endurance Team. 5 teams. TSR and Yoshimura used to compete in the All-Japan Championship, but now concentrate on World Endurance. The rider lineups are not based around Japanese riders with additional foreign riders, but rather the teams are mainly composed of foreign riders. The Kawasaki WEBIKE Trickster is the Japanese Trickster Racing team that has taken over the management of SRC Kawasaki of France, Kawasaki's top World Endurance team until then. As shown in the table below, going back to the 46th event last year in 2025, it was a parade of one-match works teams that won the Hachi-Tai. Even in the 1985 event, which made the biggest impact in the Suzuka 8 Hours, with the much-talked-about Tadahiko Taira & Kenny Roberts team, the winner was the one-match works team of Wein Gardner & Masaki Tokuno. But that is not to say that no World Endurance team has ever won the championship: the winning team in 1983, Herve Moineau & Ricardo Ubin, was the regular championship team of Suzuki France (the predecessor of SERT, Yoshimura's current partner), which is also entered in the World Endurance Championship. Looking at the lineup of championship teams, the dominance of Japanese pairs became apparent around the mid-1990s, and the number of foreign teams remained small. However, around 2010, World Championship teams began to appear in the top ranks of Hachitaro, and in 2009, YART won 4th place, and regular championship teams often joined the top contenders. Even if we focus on the top 5 of the modern Hachi-Tai, Suzuki GB Phase 1 was 4th in 2003, YART was 4th in 2009, and finally in 2012, GMT94 Yamaha was on the podium in 3rd place, TSR Honda was on the podium in 2nd place in 2015, and 3rd in 2017 and 2023. In 2024, which is still fresh in our minds, YART took second place on the same lap as the winning Team HRC, and in 2025 BMW Motorrad finished fifth.

"The days of foreign teams not being able to get to the top at Suzuka are totally over. It is true that not so long ago, teams with mainly Japanese riders were the fastest at Suzuka, but in recent years, even the World Endurance teams have the ability to win at Hachi-Tai," Yohei Kato, team director of Yoshimura SERT MOTUL, a regular World Endurance team, told us a few years ago. Yohei Kato, team director of Yoshimura SERT MOTUL, a regular World Endurance team, once told me a few years ago. And the winner of the Le Mans 24-hour endurance race, the opening round of the 2026 World Endurance Championship, was YART, which has been repeatedly mentioned as a potential Hachi-Tai winner in recent years, with Yoshimura SERT MOTUL in second place and Kawasaki WEBIKE Trickster in third, these three teams also aiming for the World Endurance Champion title, The three teams, all aiming for the World Endurance Champion title, will also be competing in Hachi-Tai as a matter of course. In addition to the previously mentioned one-match works teams such as Honda HRC, Yamaha Factory Racing Team, and Team SUZUKI CN Challenge, the regular World Championship teams such as TSR Honda, YART, Yoshimura, KWT, and BMW Motorrad also deserve attention. We must also keep an eye on the regular teams of the World Championship such as TSR Honda, YART, Yoshimura, KWT and BMW Motorrad. ＜[continue] To the gallery (9)