Bol D’Or - The Race
Following a few problems throughout the 24-hour Bol d’Or race at Magny-Cours, Steve and the GMT94 Yamaha team completed the penultimate round of the World Endurance championship in sixth place on Sunday.
After qualifying in second place, just 200th of a second away from pole, teammate Sebastien Gimbert started the race for the team and led briefly in the early stages.
But after refuelling and handing over the David Checa the problems began for the team. Just two hours into the race a stone holed the radiator and an unscheduled pit stop to replace the radiator followed.
Next up on the bike was Steve who eventually fought his way back up to third. But after handing over the Gimbert once again the bad luck continued.
A riderless bike took Gimbert out as he tipped into the hairpin and he was very lucky not to be badly injured.
Once more a fight back began and the team managed to get back up to sixth position as the light faded. Going into the night session the weather took a turn for the worse and the rain continued until daybreak. Because of his injuries Gimbert was only able to complete a further two sessions and Steve rode three double sessions of two hours each, which made it a long and exhausting night.
The race continued throughout the morning and GMT94 finally crossed the finish line for sixth place at 2pm GMT.
“We had a very eventful time of it out there,” said Steve. “Sebastien Gimbert is a bit battered but he will be ok for his World Superbike ride with the team at the weekend, he was very lucky as it was a big crash.
“The rain didn’t help our cause either, and doing a double stint on the bike each time made it seem forever till the chequered flag was waved at us. I did make good time through the night but it was obvious we were never going to be in contention for the win – which we should have been.”
Steve returns to the Yamaha Austria team for the final round at Doha/Losail where, although he cannot win the title, the team is still in contention for the runner-up spot.
Steve returns to domestic action with AIM Yamaha next weekend where he will be contesting the penultimate round of the British Supersport championship on Sunday, September 28. He won the race last time out at Cadwell and will be looking for more of the same at Silverstone.
Bol D’Or Qualifying
Steve will start this year’s Bol d’Or 24-hour World Endurance race from second place on the grid for the French Yamaha team GMT 94 behind current world champions SERT.
Qualifying was a close run affair with SERT sealing pole position just a couple of hundredths of a second ahead of the GMT94 team which comprises of Steve, Sebastien Gimbert and David Checa. The Yamaha team will be anxious to repeat last year’s result as they actually won the race in 2007.
However Steve was not in the winning team last year as he was riding for Kawasaki France and they failed to finish because of mechanical problems with the machine during the night but he did finish third with Kawasaki in 2006.
“We are in with a good chance of the win here at Magny Cours,” said Steve. “All three riders have a good race pace and the bike is running well for us. My team mate Sebastien Gimbert remains the fastest rider overall this weekend with a 1m 40,826s lap posted on Thursday and I bettered my earlier time by three quarters of a second today in final qualifying so we only missed out on pole position by a fraction of a second.”
Asked what sort of result he was looking for this time, Steve replied: “Nothing less than a win will satisfy me this weekend.”
 The race will be tight between the SERT Suzuki 1, current World Champion, and 2007 Bol d’Or winner Yamaha GMT 94. They are not the only contenders for victory, however. Yamaha Austria Racing Team took third place on the starting grid with Igor Jerman, Steve Martin and Gwen Giabbani. YART is also leading by a small margin the Kawasaki France ridden by Erwan Nigon, Ivan Silva and Julian Mazuecos. The first four bikes on the starting grid are all below the 1’42 mark on the average time of their three riders.
The race is set to begin at 2pm GMT (3pm CET) on Saturday and run all through the night with the three riders taking turns to ride for an hour each throughout the 24 hours until the chequered flag is waved at 2pm GMT on Sunday.
The Bol d’Or is the penultimate round of the World Endurance championship in which Steve is holding second place in the championship with Yamaha Austria (YART). The final round is at Doha in Qatar on November 8 when Steve is expected to return to the YART team and is hoping to end the season on a high by sealing the World Endurance title with them.
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