Niccolo Canepa shows off spectacular Spa with helmet cam lap in EWC testing

NICCOLO Canepa’s helmet camera gives an insight to racing an endurance-spec factory superbike at Spa unrivalled by any other second-hand experience.

Canepa has made a bit of a thing of posting helmet-cam footage on his YouTube page in recent years, from Bol d’Or testing to a track day in Almeria, and even Suzuka 8 Hour practice. 

With the Endurance World Championship heading back to Spa this year for the first time in more than 20 years, Canepa and the rest of the Endurance World Championship factory teams have been testing at the famous Ardennes circuit ahead of next month’s 24 Hour race.

Canepa, with his YART Yamaha teammates Marvin Fritz and Karel Hanika, were able to battle back from a disastrous start in Le Mans, and through issues getting the bike started in the pits throughout the race, to finish second behind the dominant Yoshimura SERT Suzuki team of Sylvain Guintoli, Gregg Black, and Xavier Simeon. 

The second round of the 2022 EWC at Spa will also be the second 24-hour race in the space of just over one month, so will be another huge test for the teams. 

No doubt, though, that 24 hours of Spa is a much more enticing and exciting prospect than 24 hours of Le Mans. Unlike the car race, the bikes race around the Bugatti Circuit, the same layout that MotoGP used at last weekend’s French Grand Prix. At the Bugatti Circuit, the lap times are short, and the layout is not especially spectacular. 

Spa, though, is the opposite of that. Its endless undulations and sweeping, medium-speed, corners make it one of the most exciting circuits in the world; and, with lap times of over two minutes, its spectacularity comes without the relentless repetition of Le Mans. 

In testing, the fastest time was set by the #37 factory BMW team’s test bike at a 2’20.344, just over half-a-tenth faster than the official SERT bike. YART Yamaha were fifth, on a 2’20.560, with their official #7 bike, while the #5 factory FCC TSR Honda France bike was just 0.031 behind YART on a 2’20.591. With the top four factory teams covered by less than a-quarter-of-a-second, it is sure to be an exciting race on 4-5 June.