The famous 24 Hours of Le Mans took place on the Bugatti Circuit in France, as the first race of the World Endurance Championship of the 2024 season.
On the track, riding the Honda 777 of the Wojcik Racing Team, team captain Kevin Manfredi demonstrated to everyone how professionalism and determination can lead a new team, with a new bike, to perform in just two days and without having did winter tests.
The Spezzino, already on Tuesday, thanks also to the support from home of the technician Simone of the Andreani Group, gave precise indications to the Wojcik Racing Team on the direction to adopt to achieve the right setup.
These indications took the Honda 777 from the best time of 1.40.2 on Tuesday morning to an excellent 1.37.7 in qualifying, set by Manfredi himself, who managed to be faster even than Honda riders who already knew the bike.
After two excellent qualifications also by teammates Danny Webb, Sheridan Morais and Gino Rea, the team qualified in 5th place in the Stock category and 15th overall.
The 46th edition of the most prestigious endurance race in motorcycling finally began on Saturday at 3pm, with Kevin Manfredi in charge of making the renowned start at the start of what for him was his 14th twenty-four hours of his career.
Kevin: “Definitely a very busy weekend, also linked to the fact that I started having a fever on Friday afternoon.
I was happy to have worked well and to have immediately found a lot of feeling, as it was my first time riding the Honda CBR1000, a bike that everyone says is very complicated.
I didn't think I could do so well without testing, but the team complied with my requests in terms of setup and this allowed us to already be among the leaders in just a few rounds. I was in charge of the departure, a very important responsibility for me.
I absolutely didn't want to make mistakes and that's what happened: I started strong and immediately exploited the potential of the bike, especially the feeling I had with the tires in the first laps, which allowed me, in the first stint, to bring the team into the fight for first Stock position and ninth overall.
It's a shame for how things went... my partner Gino Rea, on his return from a long and bad injury, in his first stint, perhaps due to too much desire to demonstrate that he is still as strong as before, exaggerated and crashed twice, only to crash a third time in his second stint as well.
This forced us to return to the pits and from there various mechanical problems arose, perhaps also due to the falls...
It's a shame, we had to settle for a handful of flies, even when we could have finally given a different outcome to the race, but these are races...
We have shown that we have good potential which we must be able to make the most of from the next race, the 8 Hours of SPA Francorchamps in Belgium.”
Kevin Manfredi however comes away with his head held high, as the world championship is still long, the points in qualifying were important and the future races will have to be the litmus test for the whole team. From this year the FIM EWC boasts a new rule, in addition to having increased the number of drivers competing in a 24 Hours from 3 to 4, from 2024 a final gap will also be applied to the 4 races on the calendar, forcing the teams to precisely " discard” the match in which they obtained the lowest score. The games are still open and Kevin is more ready than ever.
Kevin thanks all the sponsors and technical partners of the 2024 season.
