Suzuka boost for all-Thai team plans
AP Honda satisfied with results in rain-battered 4-hour endurance race in Japan
>> The AP Honda Racing Thailand team didn’t win anything at the Suzuka Endurance 4 Hours in Japan last week but they weren’t there to win anything in the first place.
The members of the team returned home beaming with satisfaction as their performance in the event was an important step for the Thai riders hoping to star in MotoGP in the future.
The team management is seeing their seventh place in the worldfamous race in Japan as another important milestone in their carefully worked out roadmap aimed at generating Thai riders for MotoGP.
It was the team’s second successive visit to the annual Suzuka Endurance 4 Hours.
However, for the team’s trio of rising stars — ‘Bew’ Warit Thongnoppakul, ‘Feem’ Piyawat Prathumyod and reserved rider ‘New’ Kritchaporn Kaewsonti — it was their first international racing event.
The team started off from the ninth position on the grid under a heavy rain that intermittently battered the track throughout the day.
Warit and Piyawat, racing in the 600cc supersport category, did well when they moved to the second place during the first two hours before paying a heavy price for their lack of experience.
A stop-and-go 30-second penalty was handed to them as they made the mistake of overtaking other bikes when the yellow flag was being waved, causing them to drop to the 13th place.
The two Thai riders did not give in and showed great fighting spirit to cross the finish line in the seventh place, the best ever finish for the allThai racing team in the event.
Arlakh Pornprapa, deputy CEO of AP Honda Thailand, said: “It is another success for the team in this tournament.
“We are going ahead with our longterm plan to build an all-Thai team, which truly belongs to the Thai people and is ready to take part in MotoGP by the year 2025.
“We have passed a major test with a pleasing result here in Suzuka. Our two riders have posted better times than the previous year.
“This all means that our MotoGP plans f or the year 2025 are on course. We can definitely hope for a world-class all-Thai team.”
AP Honda Thailand deputy president Suchart Aroonsangroj said: “The result in this year’s competition is another boost for the Thai riders to upgrade themselves and the team to a higher level and become fulltime professionals.
“We have a long term plan and we want to produce a team which is 100 percent Thai for the 2025 MotoGP races.
“We have learned a great deal from foreign experts with international experience for quite sometime but now we feel we have the potential to improve ourselves to the professional level.”
AP Honda Thailand has a motorsport academy which is nurturing a new breed of Thai riders for the future international competitions like MotoGP.
“The academy welcomes enthusiasts aged 9-14 to participate in the development programmes to become professional riders under coach Rattapark Wilairoj, the first Thai rider to take part in Moto2,” said Suchart.
“Our highest goal is MotoGP and we must reach that point.”