The French MX1 Elite Championship started this week-end in La Chapelle St Aubin (Sarthe), on Pichon’s track. On terrible conditions after heavy rains on Sunday morning, Sébastien Pourcel won the event and is leading the series.
It has been a wet opening round, and all the riders crashed at least once or twice on this track built just for this event by Mickael Pichon and his father Alain. Including many jumps and technical sections the track was a nightmare, especially for the first race as the rain stopped later in the afternoon.
After an early crash in this heat, Sébastien came back from the last to the third place behind Pichon and Renet. He took his revendge in the following race, winning pretty easily as Pichon crashed twice this time and beating Renet and Coulon. The last moto including the best MX1 and MX2 riders was another good one for Seb, who started in fifth position and finished runner-up right behind Pichon. With a 3/1/2 performance, Sebastien beats Pichon (1/7/1) on his home track and Renet (2/2/11) and will be next week in Romagné (Britanny) for the second of the six rounds.
Sébastien Pourcel:“That’s a long time we didn’t race on such difficult conditions, and it was a good test before the GP season. It was important to be smart on the bike, and easy to crash as the track was really demanding with many ruts everywhere. In the first heat I crashed with several riders after three corners, and lost time to re-start as my bike was in the bareers. I did a consistant race to come back third from the last rank. In the following heat I was fifth at the start and rode consistantly, came back second behind Pichon when he crashed. Then I had an easy lead, fourty seconds over Renet and it was a good feeling to win my first ever MX1 race. The track was really difficult for the super final, once more I started in fifth place and came back second, just a few seconds behind Pichon. I’m leading the series, that’s nice but there’s till five more races and we could have the same weather conditions next week in Britanny. I’ll stay this week in this part of France, and will practice there with my GP bike.”
Roger Pourcel: “I’m happy with the results of Sébastien, he rode perfectly on difficult conditions and he proved that he his now as comfident on the 450 than he was on the 250. He never took any risks, and even after his crash in the opening moto he stay quiet and rode safe. Next week Christophe will do his first race in Mons (Belgium) since his injury, he just started practicing again on the bike last monday. Of course he will not be totally ready, but that will be a good test before the first GP.”
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