The Paris-based team, run by brothers Stéphane Haddadj and Eric Collin, the Technical Manager, from their Honda motorbike dealership in the French capital’s La Défense business district, entered endurance motorcycle racing in 1971 and remains as motivated as ever ahead of the 2022 FIM Endurance World Championship.
It has retained Swiss duo Sébastien and Valentin Suchet and Frenchman Guillaume Raymond to ride its Honda CBR1000RR in the EWC’s Dunlop-equipped Superstock category, starting with the 24 Heures Motos at Le Mans from 14-17 April.
Stéphane Haddadj, Team Manager of National Motos, said: “The mentality of our team has not changed. Since the team was founded by my father and mother we have remained passionate for this sport and the Honda brand. Each season is always difficult because we are a Honda dealership, this is our main job, but year after year it’s very important for us to continue our presence and the presence of Honda in endurance motorcycle racing because it’s our history and we want to continue the history for as long as possible.”
National Motos will continue the partnerships with Instituts National du Cycle et du Motocycle (INCM) in Le Bourget and GARAC, the national school of automobile and motorcycle professionals located in Argenteuil. The partnerships began in 2021 aimed at providing young student mechanics with the opportunity to gain valuable working experience and learn new skills. “They are the new generation and we integrate these young people in our team at tests and races, giving them a chance to learn many important subject,” Haddadj said. “We want them to have the transmission of knowledge, it’s very important for us.”
The alliance National Motos has struck with ARSLA is new for 2022 and more personal as Haddadj explained. “We want to promote this important medical association because my father suffered with this condition for 10 years,” he said.
Of the riders who will represent National Motos and the team’s prospects for 2022, Haddadj continued: “Our riders are very similar in performance and the first test was very good. The objective is, of course, to do better and better each season but endurance racing is difficult to predict and in a 24-hour race, and there are three this season, anything can happen with accidents, mechanical problems and changes of weather. Spa-Francorchamps is also a new challenge and a very different circuit to Le Mans and Le Castellet, although my father rode there in the past with the team so it’s a half-new history for our team. We will prepare to the maximum.”
