SBK, 24 Hours of Le Mans: crash for Hanika when the YART team was dominating

The Yamalube YART Yamaha team's dominance in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the opening round of the FIM Endurance World Championship, came to an end after a bad crash by Karel Hanika, just when it looked like the team might reach the 16-hour mark in the lead. YART riders Niccolò Canepa, Marvin Fritz, and Karel Hanika had a four-lap lead over the BMW Motorrad World Endurance Team trio of Sylvain Guintoli, Illya Mykhalchyk, and Markus Reiterberger before the final eight hours of racing began.

Unfortunately, the crash gave a green light to their opponents, the Yoshimura SERT Motul team that is currently leading the race. It took YART mechanics 18 minutes to repair the damaged Yamaha and when there were five hours to go, Canepa was leading with five laps behind the Suzuki and four behind the BMW.

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