The 46th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans ended on the Bugatti circuit in Le Mans, the historic French endurance race which again this year saw 77,200 spectators present.
The race once again gave so many emotions, leaving the spectators present and the television audience in suspense, twists and turns lap after lap that saw Kevin Manfredi from La Spezia among the protagonists of the SuperStock category.
Throughout the race week Kevin was fast up until the qualifying session where the weather conditions didn't help him conquer a new pole position to add to the ones recorded in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022; Kevin and the Wojcik Racing Team therefore had to settle for fourth place in their category.
However, the general enthusiasm was raised by the Thursday night tests in which the Italian rider recorded excellent times bringing the Yamaha R1, number 777, into the absolute top ten and into first position in the Stock class.
At 15:00 on Saturday 15 April the forty-sixth edition of the 24h of Le Mans officially starts, the first race of the Endurance World Championship of 2023.
After the historic race towards the bike, at the start of the race, the Spezzino immediately records a daring fall that damages both the right side of the semi-handlebar and the footpeg of the bike on impact with the asphalt.
Thanks to his determination, however, Kevin wasted no time, he immediately got the bike back up and set off again despite the damage that the bike was carrying, and he rode recovering various positions until he stopped at the pit stop on schedule and not with the emergency that everyone they believed after such a fall.
From that moment on, the whole team had to grit its teeth to try to reduce the gap from the leaders ever more since the first hours of the race. Despite the initial crash, Kevin proved to be the fastest Stock rider on the track in several sessions.
Kevin: “The 24 Hours of Le Mans is always a unique experience of its kind, this year the weather conditions made it even more unusual and difficult.
We weren't very lucky, we would have liked to have conquered Pole Position once again and finally won this race, but we had to settle for the points gained which led us to be sixth in the World standings.
Last year at Le Mans due to a technical problem we had to retire without getting any points, so we see the glass as half full and stay focused for the next rounds.
During the night, after climbing from 25th position to the Top 5, I believed very much in being able to reach the podium, but with the first light of dawn, the track became damp and treacherous and this caused two crashes for my teammates .
The time it took us to stop in the garage to repair the bike didn't allow us to maintain the position we had laboriously regained, so in a few laps we found ourselves at the bottom of the standings again, but this is Endurance…”
Endurance racing is precisely this too, Endurance is a Championship where not only speed or race pace counts, but also and above all luck.
Kevin, his team mates Dan and Kamil and the Wojcik Racing Team were very good at recovering after the first crash, moving from 25th place to 5th after just eight hours of racing and they did the same after the next two crashes, recovering with a fast pace from 16th position in the SuperStock to 9th place, position with which they then finished the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2023.
A good showdown and a respectable Top 10 after such a difficult race.
The Championship has just begun, the standings are still open and Kevin's goal is to work on some aspects during the months off to improve the results of every single race together with the Wojcik Racing Team.
Kevin thanks all the sponsors and technical partners of the 2023 season.
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