Chris Walker from the GIL Kawasaki team took his Ninja ZX-6R to a fine top ten finish at the Nürburgring in Germany, in a dramatic and twice delayed 19-lap Supersport race.
Walker was eventually ninth, with his team-mate Katsuaki Fujiwara 11th, in what was an eventually lonely race for more championship points. Walker finished close to the two riders in front but was just unable to pass them before the flag.
Each rider had endured a tough qualifying session, but called on their race craft and experience to get them moving forward when points were up for grabs.
Now Walker is 11th in the overall point’s table, only one point from a share of ninth, with Fujiwara 18th.
Chris Walker: “I thought it was going to be a seventh! Obviously by qualifying badly it was going to be hard to make up places and I got stuck behind a couple of slower riders. By the time I got past them everybody had gone. I could do the lap times but I just could not get past the riders just in front of me. We may have been way too far off the lead at the end but the lap times were not bad.”
Katsuaki Fujiwara: “We had a better time in the race than practice. The set-up is getting better but it's still not perfect. I was behind Chris and I thought it was possible to pass him, but after seven or eight laps the front tyre started to feel loose on the track surface and I started to run wide. After that is was difficult to make up ground.”
