2008 Endurance World Championship
Le Mans 24 hours, France
Sunday 20th April
Circuit: 4.180 kms. Crowd: 85,000
Conditions: Saturday: rain at start, then sunny/cloudy. Sunday:
rain in the night, then sunny/cloudy.
TEAM BMW MOTORRAD MOTORSPORT SUFFERS CRUEL LUCK AT
LE MANS.
After a weekend of problems due to the varying weather conditions,
Team BMW Motorrad Motorsport’s trio of Richard Cooper,
José Luis Nion and Brian Parriott were heading for
a hard-fought for top fifteen finish, until a last lap drama
ruled them out. On the very last lap of the 24-hour marathon,
Richard was riding smoothly and cruising to the finish, when
his bike suddenly suffered a loss of power at the end of the
pit straight. He managed to keep it going until La Chapelle,
where the marshals told him that he had five minutes to get
it across the finish line in order to post a result. He got
a bit of a tow from another rider and then began the long,
hard push two hundred or so metres from the finish line. But
instead of being allowed to cross the finish line, he was
directed into the pit-lane by a group of marshals because
he was adjudged to be outside the five minute limit! Because
of that, he and his team mates were not classified as finishers
in the results.
BMW Motorrad Motorsport’s other team (Sébastien
Le Grelle, Stéphane Mertens and Rico Penzkofer) had
suffered misfortune just before half race distance. They were
on course for a tremendous top ten finish, when the bike suffered
a dramatic loss of power. Stéphane Mertens felt the
bike slow on the front straight, so pulled the bike off the
track just before the Dunlop bridge. Before long, one the
team’s mechanics appeared and together they tried to
restart the bike. But, on hearing a strange noise, they decided
that, in the interests of safety, it would be better not to
continue. But before both dramas, the team had more than proved
their capability and, if things had gone smoothly, one of
both bikes would’ve been in the top ten at the end for
sure.
Once again, the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team took first and
second places in the Le Mans 24 hours. Last year’s race
winners - Suzuki no 2 ridden by William Costes, Guillaume
Dietrich and Dutchman Barry Veneman - won this year’s
race, eleven laps ahead of Suzuki no 1 of Vincent Philippe,
Matthieu Lagrive and Julien da Costa, with the Yamaha Acropolis
Motor Expert trio of Grégory Fastre, Grégory
Leblanc and Anthony Dos Santos third.
Bike no 71
Richard Cooper
All weekend the bike has never skipped a beat and even riding
in rain when it was dark was not a problem. In fact, I really
got on with it and didn’t have any dramas or ‘moments’
at all. All weekend, we were chasing a top 15 place and, up
until the last lap, I think we were achieving our goals. Our
highest placing was 14th, but that felt comfortable and we
believed we could hold on to that OK. After Brian’s
crash we lost well over four laps, but our team worked hard
to get us back on the track quickly and gave us the chance
to regain our position. The bike worked very well and we had
a good set-up - for rain or dry - and all three of us were
running pretty consistent lap times and we had an idea of
what we could achieve. The end was a disaster and although
I tried my best to get the bike back in time, I couldn’t
because the distance was too great. I am absolutely gutted
and even though my body should be full of aches and pains
I just feel numb at the moment.
Jose Luis Nion
I feel disappointed and sad for the whole team who have worked
so hard these past days. All the effort they’ve put
in has come to nothing and that’s hard to take. The
bike worked really well and was problem-free (apart from Brian’s
small crash), until the last lap. Today, we just didn’t
get any luck, but racing is like that sometimes and we have
to get over it and start thinking and working towards the
next race.
Brian Parriott
I crashed in the pouring rain, when the back suddenly came
round without warning. I hadn’t been going particularly
fast or giving it too much gas - it just happened. Because
of the soaking conditions, I ended up sliding a long way and
ended up in the dirt and mud. I went to the bike, picked up
and restarted it OK and rode it back to the pits so that my
mechanics could get to work repairing the damage. My leathers
were so badly covered in mud, that rest of the mechanics asked
me if I had been doing a bit of mud-wrestling! We lost about
fifteen minutes because of the crash, but the guys worked
really well and got us back on track superfast. We then started
regaining positions and were doing really good until the last
lap drama.
Bike 17
Stéphane Mertens
I am disappointed for sure because we all believed that a
top ten finish was a real possibility and we showed that capability
in the race until the moment we had a problem. I was on the
bike, when there was a sudden loss of power, so I had no choice
but to pull off the track. I tried to restart it, but I heard
a bit of a noise. Then, one of mechanics arrived and we tried
to restart it again but, when the noise happened again, we
thought it would be better (and safer) if we retired. Up to
then I had been comfortable and really enjoying my comeback
to racing after missing last season. But this kind of upset
happens sometimes, so we just have to forget about it and
look to the next race.
Berti Hauser (Director of BMW Motorrad Motorsport)
Is it some kind of unwritten rule that our second race of
the season should end badly?
Last year, our second race of the year was a bit of a disaster
and this year has been exactly the same! Nevertheless, I think
that we, as a team, showed the capability of the bike this
weekend. Our goal was to finish in the top ten and we were
in the top ten during the race, despite the ever-changing
conditions. But for the dramas of the crash and then the last
lap problem, I am sure we would’ve finished in the top
ten and that would’ve been a great result. Although
we all a bit disappointed about how things turned out, particularly
with bike No 71 at the end, we are not complaining because
the rules are the rules. If things had worked out differently
this weekend, we would’ve finished with one bike in
the top ten and the other in the top fifteen. However, racing
can be cruel sometimes and today we all suffered. We’re
not going to dwell on what happened in Le Mans, because we’re
going to start looking forward immediately to our next race
and doing everything to get a pair of good results.
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