Sylvain Guintoli “hoping” for expanded EWC calendar: “They’re working on it”

Former World Superbike Champion and current factory BMW EWC rider Sylvain Guintoli says he is “hoping” for an expanded Endurance World Championship calendar in the coming years.

The EWC series currently runs a four-round schedule and has done so since Covid. Briefly, though, it had added a 12-hour race in Sepang to its calendar in 2019.

That race only ran once, and bad weather meant it was only a four-hour race, won by YART Yamaha thanks to a memorable performance by Niccolo Canepa.

Guintoli, however, says that an expansion from the current four-round calendar – which includes the 24 Heures Motos at Le Mans, 8 Hours of Spa Motos, Suzuka 8 Hours, and the Bol d’Or 24-hour race at Paul Ricard – is being worked on.

“We’re hoping for that,” Guintoli said in an interview with Crash.net at the British MotoGP.

“I think everybody would like to see one or two extra rounds.

“I know they’re [championship organisers] working on it.

“Hopefully we can make something happen like at Sepang or Qatar. This would be amazing, but hopefully for next year.”

Focusing back on 2025, Guintoli said he was pleased with the progress being made by the factory BMW effort in EWC.

The team has switched to Bridgestone tyres for this season – long the benchmark tyre in the championship, especially in warmer conditions as are often found at races like the Suzuka 8 Hours – and the rider who won the 2021 world title with Suzuki said that, despite missing the podium at a chaotic wet opening round at Le Mans, he’s content with the direction the endurance project is heading.

“It’s going alright, with BMW,” Guintoli said.

“We’ve got the Bridgestone tyres now, which we’re still adapting to but it’s great for the whole team and the whole project.

“In Le Mans it was absolute carnage because of the conditions: we basically had 24 hours of rain and drying, and rain and drying non-stop. The rack was really tricky, really slippery, but it was good fun. I enjoyed it.”

The 24 Heures Motos was also the first time Guintoli had done the first stint in an EWC race, where the start still requires the starting rider to run to their bike from the other side of the grid. The 42-year-old joked that he was concerned over his physical capacity to take the start.

“It was the first time I did the start as well, so I was a bit worried to pull a muscle doing the run, so I did like a proper warm-up,” he laughed.

“But it didn’t happen, so that was good.

“Leading for a couple of hours, that was good, I enjoyed that; then unfortunately a small mistake.

“But there were like 200 crashes during the race, so that’s like three or four crashes, on average, for every bike. We had three crashes: one for each rider.

“We just missed out on the podium due to a mechanical – that was probably due to one of the crashes – towards the end of the race.

“Still a good race for us, just disappointing not to get the podium, but we’re making in-roads and Spa, on paper, should be really good for us.

“The BMW effort in endurance has really stepped up, and we’re hoping for a really strong result there.

“The endurance championship is becoming more and more every year, like more and more competitive. We’ve got manufacturers involved, and five or six bikes that contest every race.”

Round two of the 2025 EWC takes the series once again to Spa, on 7 June, although the race has been running to a shorter eight-hour length since 2024 compared to the original 24-hour race that took place in 2022 and 2023.

“The 24 hours was pretty brutal in Spa,” Guintoli said. “It’s a very challenging track, the lighting was challenging as well – at night, there were spots on the track where we couldn’t see very well.

“We were lucky not to get rain at night as well, because that would’ve made things a lot worse.

“At the moment, it’s back to an eight-hour.

“I personally enjoy the challenge of 24 hours, but it was a brutal race, really tough, and a little bit ‘old school’.

“So, eight hours, different format, a little bit more pace, it’s good as well.”

Guintoli, together with factory BMW teammates Steven Odendaal and Markus Reiterberger, enter the 8 Hours of Spa Motos this weekend fourth in the standings and 21 points adrift of the championship-leading YART Yamaha team, which won in Le Mans despite crashing at the final corner on lap one.