The Suzuki Endurance Racing Team [SERT] finished second at the weekend's Bol d'Or and the final round of the 2026 Endurance World Championship, and with the result claimed second in the final points standings.
At the start of the famous 24-hour race at Paul Ricard, Gregg Black made his trademark holeshot off the start and led the way into turn one, however the team dropped back to fifth place after a small disruption during the first pit stop cost time.
As evening came the team climbed up to fourth place, and then joined the leading trio of teams in the fight for victory. They moved up to second place during the night, picking up another nine championship points at the 16 hour mark.
Black, Dan Linfoot, and Etienne Masson held the position for the next eight hours, taking the chequered flag to secure second in the championship.
Black said afterwards, "I’m pleased with this second place. This season hasn’t been easy for us and we arrived at the Bol d’Or with a significant gap in the championship standings. Our aim was to win the race, but we finished second after facing some very strong competition, which is still a good result. During our first stint, we als encountered a minor issue whilst changing the front wheel. This is very rare for the SERT, but it can happen, even to the best teams. We struggled with the hard tyre but once this was changed we regained our pace and managed to gradually work our way back up the pack and we had some great battles throughout the race."
Masson commented, "We were a bit surprised by how the bike performed at the start of the race on the hard tyres. We weren’t able to set the pace as we’d have liked. As soon as the temperatures dropped slightly and we were able to change tyres, things really improved. From then on, we performed very well, both in the pits and on the track. We kept the leaders under pressure and tried from start to finish to force them into a mistake, but they were exemplary. Well done to them."
Linfoot added, "Of course, we would have preferred to finish on the top step of the podium, but overall, we had a good race. We simply lacked that little something extra to really challenge for the win. Nevertheless, we must be proud of what we’ve achieved. We’ll learn from this race, carry on working and strive to improve. It’s certainly not the campaign we’d hoped for at the start of the season, but we’re concluding with two second-place finishes in both 24-hour races. We’ll take that with us and keep moving forward to come back even stronger."