EWC: Niccolo Canepa gives YART-Yamaha the Sepang 8 Hour victory

Niccolo Canepa has gifted YART Yamaha the win in the inaugural Sepang 8 hour race after completing the shortened Sepang race on his own.

The 8 Hour race was scheduled to kick off at 13:00 local time, however, the riders and teams were greeted to torrential rain over the course of the day, resulting in a delayed start to the inaugural 8 Hour race at the Sepang International Circuit.

The action commenced under safety car conditions but as conditions worsened, Race Direction was forced to red flag the race.

Eventually, the race was restarted under Safety Car conditions at 6pm local time, but with a reduced time of three hours.

It wasn’t long until the green flag was showed, and Van der Mark immediately started to set the early pace.

Mike Di Meglio was quick to pass Somkiat Chantra onboard the HADR With Showa machine and chased down the World Superbike star.

Di Meglio then caught and passed Van der Mark to take the lead of the race and the pair battled it out for the early lead.

That was until Van der Mark repassed the Frenchman into the final corner, but as the Dutchman went wide, Di Meglio forced his F.C.C. TSR Honda France underneath Van der Mark.

The pair came together and crashed out in dramatic fashion.

Di Meglio got away with little damage and maintained the race lead despite crashing whilst Van der Mark was forced to pit, losing seven minutes of track action, dropping the Sepang Racing Team outside of the top 30.

With Di Meglio in the lead, Yart Yamaha started to chase down the F.C.C. TSR Honda France rider, piling on the pressure with just over an hour and a half remaining.

The drama would continue after Di Meglio crashed for the second time in the race, gifting the lead to the Yamaha team.

With just over an hour remaining, Canepa controlled the lead with the Honda Team Asia team lying second, and BMW Motorrad EWC fighting for 3rd.

Michael Van der Mark pulled into the pits to swap with MotoGP rider Franco Morbidelli who fought his way through to 7th when the flag dropped.

After completing the race on his own, Niccolo Canepa and Yart Yamaha took the win ahead of HADR With Show, and Marcos Reiterberger and Ilya Mikhalchik put the BMW in third.

Sepang 8 Hour race classification:

1. Yart Yamaha – 80 Laps
2. Honda Asia-Dream Racing With Showa +1 Lap
3. BMW Motorrad World Endurance Team +1 Lap
4. Moto Ain +1 Lap
5. Suzuki Endurance Racing Team +1 Lap
6. We Bike SRC Kawasaki France +2 Laps
7. Yamaha Sepang Racing +2 Laps
8. BMW Sepang Racing +2 Laps
9. 3ART Moto Team 95 +2 Laps
10. Team ERC Endurance +2 Laps

Championship classification after Round 2/5

1. Suzuki Sert – 79 Points
2. BMW Motorrad EWC – 65 Points
3. Wojcik Racing Team – 48 Points
4. YART Yamaha – 46 Points
5. 3ART Moto Team 95 – 33 Points
6. VRD Igol Pierret EXP – 32 Points
7. Omega Maco Racing – 30 Points
8. Webike SRC Kawasaki – 28 Points
9. Tecmas BMW GMC – 26 Points
10. FCC TSR Honda France – 26 Points

Round 3 of the EWC Championship comes from Le Mans in April 2020.