On Saturday, April 18, the new season of the FIM EWC Endurance World Championship will begin with the 24-hour race in Le Mans, France. The Slovak team Maco Racing is entering its 24th season in the world championship, having completed an official test in Le Mans with other teams at the turn of March and April.
The Yamaha team bike will be driven by Martin Vugrinec from Croatia, who has achieved many successes in the past and also competed in the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup, Czech racer Michal Prášek, three-time champion of the Alpe Adria international championship, and Hungarian rider David Juhász, who also has many successful performances at international events.
Martin Kuzma, team owner:
“The aim of the test was to test our EWC bike, which we had been working on and had made several changes and adjustments to, as well as the new crew of riders for the 2026 season. We had already worked with Vugrinc in the past, but our cooperation was interrupted at that time due to injury. The other riders are Michal Prášek and David Juhász, and they needed to get acquainted primarily with the bike and Prášek, in addition to the Yamaha R1, with which he had no experience, also with the Le Mans circuit and after years, with Dunlop tires. So, during the first day, we dealt with getting acquainted with the bike and the track and also with getting him started after six months without a motorcycle. We approached it step by step, and it went well. Ride after ride, his feeling on the motorcycle improved, his times were getting better and better, and in cooperation, the racer and the team got to know each other.
We also had changes planned for the second day on the bike and a tire test, in the morning we rode on the same tires and settings from the first day and at lunch we adjusted the settings and changed the tires. Everything worked correctly, so it was the right way, the lap times were improving. The result of the testing is that we have 90 percent of the bike set up for the race and we hope that the weather will be similar to that during the tests. We also have tires selected for qualifying and the race. The riders still have a lot to improve on, we need their lap times to be closer to each other.
Overall, we are satisfied after the tests and ready for the race, but Le Mans is a 24-hour race, and it is the most demanding race in the world and a turnaround can happen in a second. The race plan will be decided according to the development, but if everything is in order, we will be happy to be in the top 10.”
