The Kawasaki WeBike Trickstar team achieved a strong podium finish at the Le Mans 24 hour World Endurance race staged at the Bugatti Circuit on 19 April.

Consistent and reliable across the grueling race, the #11 Kawasaki Webike Trickstar Ninja delivered a strong performance to finish in a worthy third place.

The 49th running of the two wheel race event at the iconic location - held on 18 and 19 April took place in front of 76,700 spectators, who witnessed a total of 60 teams in ideal conditions, with completely dry and generally sunny weather.

Having qualified in 8th position, the #11 Kawasaki quickly settled into a good pace. From the very start, Róman Ramos Alvaro held his position before beginning a steady climb up the field. The stints then continued with Christian Gamarino and Grégory Leblanc aboard a bike which strongly mirrors the machine that can be purchased in Kawasaki dealerships.

Thanks to an efficient pit crew and a flawless performance on track, the Franco-Japanese team broke into the top five at the 8-hour mark, securing 6 points counting towards the championship while doing so. At dawn, the #11 machine was running in 4th position, confirming the competitiveness of both the technical and human elements of the team. The 16-hour mark was passed in 3rd place, earning a further 8 championship points until a technical issue disrupted the team’s pace, dropping them down to 5th place.

In the final third of the race, thanks to their performance and capitalising on the setbacks faced by their rivals, the team managed by Ryuji Tsuruta regained 3rd place with less than two hours to go. Keeping their heads and staying focused, the riders maintained their pace and held onto that position until the chequered flag.

Following its second-place finish in 2025, the Kawasaki Webike Trickstar team were keen to repeat that strong performance at the Bugatti circuit for this traditional opening round of the 2026 season. It has therefore moved up to 3rd place in the championship standings with a total of 42 points from the race.

Grégory Leblanc - rider

“This is my 10th podium finish at the 24 Heures Motos out of 16 appearances – not bad at all. I’m super happy because I think we had a great race; we deserved it. We worked hard all week; it was tricky because we did very little testing, but we were determined to give it our all. We struggled to set up the bike, but in the end, the final changes we made paid off. The bike was reliable, and I’m very happy for the whole team. We’ve got off to a good start in the championship.”