2026 FIM EWC Round 2 — 8 Hours of Spa Motos | Race Report (6 June)
Starting fifth in class, Team Étoile fell to the back after an early crash — then fought through eight hours with one of the class's lowest pit-stop times to finish 4th in Superstock.
Lining up fifth in the Superstock class (17th overall), Team Étoile faced an eight-hour survival race under a sky that switched between rain and dry. The opening laps were dry: starting rider Kaito Toba set the fastest lap of the class — a 2:21.852 — on lap 5 and climbed to 4th in Superstock by lap 6. The team's pace was unmistakably at the top of the class. But on lap 7, Toba crashed. Shift-related damage kept him from completing the first stint, and a repair pit stop dropped the team back toward the rear of the field.
The eight hours that followed were where the team showed its true worth. Heavy rain from just after 4 p.m. sent track conditions swinging wildly, and the team committed to a "make no mistakes" approach, alternating between rain and slick tyres. As rivals lost long minutes in the pits to trouble, Team Étoile circulated cleanly with a cumulative stop time of about 11 minutes — among the lowest in the class — climbing back to 7th in class at half-distance and rising further in the closing hours. With the retirement of a car running ahead, the team completed a comeback from the back of the field to 4th in Superstock.
The final result: 4th in Superstock, 11th overall, 183 laps completed. Setting the fastest Superstock lap of the race (2:21.852), the team turned that speed into a result through the strength of "never stopping." With 1 point from qualifying and 19 from the race — 20 points in total — Team Étoile climbed from 12th to 9th in the championship standings.
On top of that, in the newly introduced team-support programme "Challenge Motul," aimed at the Superstock and Production classes, Team Étoile topped the Spa standings and earned a €1,000 prize. Team principal Takashi Ichikawa received the award on the podium.
Full classification (all classes) — 8 Hours of Spa Motos 2026 →
Rider & team principal comments
Rider
Hikari Okubo
"The conditions were extremely difficult. With my team-mate's crash and machine trouble, we stumbled at the start, but thanks to everyone on the team we somehow managed to fight back. I also had a moment where my own condition dropped and caused the team some trouble, but I think I was able to do the minimum job properly."
"Still, fourth is of course a frustrating result. But thinking about the championship, scoring more points than at Le Mans is significant. In Superstock the title counts your best three results out of four rounds, so if we take solid wins in the remaining two races, this effort at Spa should pay off in the championship fight. In that sense, I think it was a race weekend we can take positively."
"Even though things went badly from the moment we started on Thursday, we finished properly and, when the dust settled, we were fourth. It's by no means a satisfying result, but it's not one to be pessimistic about either. I want to turn what we learned here into back-to-back wins at our home round, the Suzuka 8 Hours. Thank you so much to everyone who supported us."
Rider
Kaito Toba
"I crashed, so I'm very frustrated and sorry to the team. Even so, I was able to restart while keeping the time loss to a minimum. After that the race went smoothly and we climbed to fourth, but since we had the potential to win, these frustrating races keep coming."
"I feel I need to learn the endurance way of racing a little more. At the Suzuka 8 Hours, if I don't carry over the mistakes of these two rounds and just ride steadily, I think we can win, so I want to push without worrying about those around me. The next round is our home GP — please come and cheer us on at the circuit."
Rider
Motoharu Ito
"Once again we had trouble early and dropped down the order, but being able to climb back steadily from there was, looking back, a good thing. That said, the reason we moved up was largely down to others' crashes, so honestly, in terms of pure pace, fighting for the win this time would have been tough."
"Looking at it positively, we scored points and managed to connect to the championship. The Suzuka 8 Hours is our home race, so I want to aim for the win while making it a Suzuka that leads on to the Bol d'Or."
"I ran the first and second stints on dry tyres as the rain spat down, and started the third stint on rain tyres on a track that was drying out. But the order was to 'stay,' so I focused on making the tyres last. I figured the team must be predicting rain some tens of minutes later, and I trusted that and just endured."
"The first time was still manageable, but the rain after the second 'stay' was like a skating rink, and no matter how much I tried to make things last it was really tough. Even so, I managed to get back to the pits, and since I think that's the most important thing, I'm glad. Thank you for your support."
Team Principal
Takashi Ichikawa
"We've finished the Spa race. It was a race weekend plagued by rain, and our result in the Superstock class was fourth. In the race, a crash in the first stint dropped us to the back of the field at one point, but from there everyone's efforts gradually moved us up, and with various troubles for other teams as well, we ended the eight hours in fourth. In terms of points, that's 1 from qualifying and 19 from the race — 20 in total. Falling just short of the podium is the frustrating part."
"It's something I felt last year too: without enough running time, in conditions that swing between rain and dry, it's difficult for us to produce results quickly. I don't want it to sound like an excuse, but that difficulty is something I felt again this year, as I did last year."
"On a happier note, there was good news as well. A programme called 'Challenge Motul,' run by Motul, started at this event. You enter by, for example, putting Motul stickers on your pit box, and among the entered teams we finished highest — and were able to receive a prize of €1,000."
"It was a bitter result, but we finished the race and fought all the way to just one step short of the podium. We'll accept this result for what it is and carry it forward to the rounds ahead. We'll keep giving our all as a team toward Suzuka next, so please continue to support us."
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