British Superbikes: Ryuichi Kiyonari wins final JSB race at Suzuka

Double British Superbike champion Ryuichi Kiyonari won the final two races in the All Japan Superbike Championship at Suzuka last week.

According to Honda insiders, Ryuichi Kiyonari was drafted into the final round in a bid to give HRC some meaningful feedback on the superstock-based race bike and give Honda race-winning success in the series after a lean year.

Takashi Yasuda finished second in both races on a kuybo.com HARC-pro Honda, nearly three seconds adrift of Ryuichi Kiynonari in the first one and over eight seconds down in race two but copped his first maximum championship points of the season since Kiyo wasn’t a championship regular.

Atushi Watanabe finished sixth and ninth at Suzuka but still clinched the title riding for Yoshimura Suzuki.

He finished the series nine points ahead of Yasuda. Watanabe’s Yosh teammate Daiskau Sakai was third overall.