After a strong series of podiums, Sébastien Pourcel took seventh place in Donington Park, home of the fourteenth and penultimate round of the World Championship. He is now fourth in the MX1 standings, and will compete for a spot in the final top three next week in Lierop.
The weekend started badly for Team GPKR at this new venue as Thierry Godfroid broke his right leg during the first race of the Veteran’s World Cup on Saturday afternoon. A few days after the injury of Christophe Pourcel, it was another bad news for the squad who saw their tyres technician and test rider return home for surgery.
Fourth in the Timed Practice, Sébastien started badly in the first moto and crashed during the first circulation. Coming back from nineteenth to sixteenth he fell again three laps later, and then worked hard to finally reach seventh place after forty minutes. Unfortunately his second start was not better and he arrived to twelfth after one lap.
The second race was one of the most exciting of the season and Seb soon joined a group of seven riders battling for second place in the race. He successively passed Barragan, Philippaerts, Strijbos, Leok, Brown and Ramon to reach third at mid-race distance and then attacked De Dycker. He unfortunately lost grip with his front wheel in an attempt to pass and crashed, losing time to restart. Finally taking eighth in the race and seventh of the Grand Prix, he dropped one slot in the standings and is now fourth, one point behind Strijbos who is third and twenty five points from Coppins who is now second in the series.
Sébastien Pourcel‘On Saturday a big stone hit my foot and it was painful during the races but I had to deal with it. I missed both starts today and crashed twice in the first race. In the last laps I was close to Ramon but went off the track and couldn’t pass him. My second start was not better but I had a good rhythm and came back to third behind De Dycker. I tried to pass him but he closed the door, I went on the outside line but lost the front wheel and crashed. It was not a good weekend but I will work hard to be ready for Lierop and contest a podium position for the last round.’
Roger Pourcel‘It was probably the hardest week of my life as I stayed alongside Christophe in the hospital. Finally on Friday I decided to come in England as Chistophe was feeling better, my wife remained with him and I felt it was also important to be here with Sébastien. On Saturday we had more bad news with the injury of Thierry Godfroid, he was in fourth position when he crashed hard and broke his leg. Sébastien missed both starts today and of course when you don’t start at the front then the race is more difficult.
He did not have such a good rhythm in the first race; he wasn’t strong enough in the second part of the track. His performance was much stronger in the second heat, but unfortunately he lost a possible win when he crashed while trying to pass De Dycker. He is now fourth in the standings and we know that the last round will be tough as most of our rivals were born in the sand, but we’ll do our best to reach a good result there, with Sébastien and also Livia Lancelot who has been training on sandy tracks last week. Let’s just hope that we’ll have at least a good weekend in Lierop, after two difficult GPs for us.’
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