Yoshimura Suzuki will feature Australia's Josh Waters at Suzuka this season.

The Suzuka 8 Hours, third round of the Qtel FIM Endurance World championship, will take place next Sunday in Japan.

This great race is an Endurance classic in Japan and always catches the best local teams, manufacturers and riders. To prepare the race, the Japanese teams were participating to a two-days testing session on the Suzuka racetrack, earlier in July.

From this testing session, the FCC TSR Honda with three regular Suzuka podium contenders, Kosuke Akiyoshi, Shinichi Itoh and Ryuichi Kiyonari, has been the fastest.

Honda Musashi RT Harc Pro, 2010 Suzuka 8 Hours winner, who is entering with Takumi Takahashi, Makoto Tamada and Tadayuki Okada was second quickest.

Meanwhile, the Yoshimura Suzuki Racing Team with Yukio Kagayama, Nobuatsu Aoki and Australian rider Josh Waters was third quickest.

Against this armada of Japanese teams, six permanent teams will try their best to find a way through the podium to score useful points for the final rankings.
With Daisaku Sakai, Vincent Philippe and Anthony Delhalle, the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team will try to increase their gap over the BMW Motorrad France 99, with Sébastien Gimbert, Erwan Nigon and Damian Cudlin.

Only two points separate these two teams in the provisional championship.

The Suzuka 8 Hours are for the other teams a great opportunity to move closer to the leaders. Yamaha Racing France GMT 94 Ipone, third in the provisional standings and 19 points behind SERT is entering the race with their usual riders, David Checa, Kenny Foray and Matthieu Lagrive.

After their zero score at Albacete, the Bolliger Team Switzerland is coming to Suzuka with Horst Saiger and Roman Stamm to join with Japanese rider Isami Higashimura.

The Monster Yamaha YART is strengthening their team with 2008 and 2009 Japanese Superbike champion, currently in third place with Katsuyuki Nakasuga, alongside Igor Jerman and Gwen Giabbani.

Last but not least, Honda TT Legends will enter the race with John McGuinness, Keith Amor and Cameron Donald.

The free practice sessions are scheduled from Thursday afternoon at Suzuka. To save some energy and lightning in a country that is still recovering from the recent earthquake, the start of the race has been moved one hour earlier.

To follow the practices and the race live, log on www.fim-live.com and www.suzukacircuit.jp/result_s/2011/8tai/index.html.