Once more after Ernée three weeks ago, the French Championship round of Lacapelle Marival was under the Pourcel’s belt. Christophe and Sébastien dominated the races and shared the heat wins, with an overall success for Christophe followed by Sébastien who clinched his first MX1 French title.
Lacapelle Marival was a perfect track for this final round, with a well prepared layout, sunny weather and big crowd for the last appearance of Christophe Pourcel and Mickael Pichon on a French MX track. During the timed practice session Pichon confirmed that he prepared this event seriously as he claimed the pole after a perfect lap, more than one second faster than anyone!
Third behind his brother, Christophe was the faster rider during the warm up and in the first two races the brothers got equal results with a win and a second position for each; Seb won the first heat, Cri the second one and before the last race Sébastien was leading the series by twelve points over Pichon instead of one single point before this event.
The super final was the most interesting race of the day, and the fans had a great show to end the meeting as both Cri and Seb wanted the last heat win! Cri got the holeshot followed by Seb, but after a few laps Seb took the lead and posted some fast laps. Cri was not so far and finally in the last period Seb let him pass, to study his lines before the last laps...
He was ready to attack him when he slided in a corner and crashed, loosing time. Unfortunately a laper came and touched him, and Seb came back to the race in third position with a broken helmet and a damaged gas throttle!
Christophe won the race followed by Pichon and Sébastien, who finally got the title, while Cri celebrated his second consecutive win in the French series. After a minivert title, a junior title and two MX2 titles, it’s the fifth time that Sébastien is crowned French champion, all of them on a Kawasaki of course.
Christophe Pourcel
‘It was a perfect weekend, we had nice and great battles with my brother for the second time this year after Ernée. Pichon was fit for this race, but with Seb we dominate all the races. The super final was for sure the best one, we had fun on the bike and I didn’t do any favour to my brother during the races. But now his title has more value than if I let him pass’
Sébastien Pourcel
‘I’m happy with my title, but I wanted so much to win the last heat! I was never really successful in Lacapelle in the past, and again this year I had some problems in one heat. We had a great race with Cri in the super final, I wanted to attack him when I slided two laps before the finish flag. The laper that I just passed was unable to avoid me, and he damaged my engine throttle! I finished the race in third position, a little bit lucky... It was fun to race with Christophe, I was a little bit faster but didn’t want to take any risks as I was battling for the title. I got five titles so far but for sure this one was the most difficult to get, as Pichon was a strong rival. My brother didn’t helped me too when he came, but I proved that I could get the title without any support from him. The track was perfect, there was a lot of public and this weekend will stay for me memorable’
Roger Pourcel
‘This weekend again I felt stressed when my sons were battling for the win, my heart was not quiet during the super final! Saturday was good for us, Pichon did a crazy lap and neither Christophe or Sébastien were able to beat him. Both offered a great show to the crowd on Sunday, especially during the super final where they passed each other several times. Impossible to ask them to do a team race, and in the last part of the super final we were lucky not to loose the title when Seb crashed. This title is a good reward for Sébastien who worked hard with the 450, and of course it’s a nice present for the team who claimed a second consecutive title. I would like to thanks the organizers who did a perfect job, they prepared a nice paddock and a wonderful track, so the riders offered a great show to the public. Gregory Aranda was not there, he has to rest for three weeks after his thumb injury in Belgium’
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