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Steve Takes Second At Le Mans
Following his fine performance for HM Plant Honda in the opening round of the British Superbike championship where he picked up a third in the British Superbike class and a second in the British Supersport championship, headed directly over to France for the free practice and qualifying sessions at Le Mans. From the off the three-man Honda France team were among the contenders for pole position and Sebastien Charpentier, Matthieu Lagrive and Steve sailed through the final Superpole session to post the fastest time in qualifying to start the Le Mans 24-hour race at the head of the field. The start procedure for Endurance races is different to any other race where the grid is formed with the riders sat on their machines ready for the off. The pit crews hold each bike, fastest qualifier at the front while the riders stand the other side of the track. When the flag is dropped the riders sprint across to jump on their bikes and get away. Matthieu Lagrive started the race for Honda France and took it steady for the first few laps to allow the Michelin tyres to heat, and was soon able to reel in the leaders to take command at the front. But disaster struck after just 11 laps when he crashed and had to return to the pit garage for hurried repairs to the damaged Honda Fireblade. Once back on track the team found themselves down in 43rd position with a lot of hard work ahead of them. But 24-hours is a long time and anything can happen. They made a tremendous comeback and were soon scything through the back markers to take up 10th position after four hours of racing, although still seven laps down on the leaders. But the heavens opened and the track was awash causing many riders to take a tumble, including Steve who aquaplaned on standing water during the night. Again the team played catch-up and eventually completed the race in a fine second place. “That was a good result for Honda who have come back into the series after an 11 year absence and also for Michelin the tyre manufacturer.” said. “The Ten Kate Racing Products prepared Honda Fireblade performed very well and all the pit crew worked extremely hard throughout the race to keep us in contention for the podium.”
Steve arrived home in the early hours of Monday but instead of catching up with his sleep was away first thing to catch a flight to the Isle of Man for the official launch of the TT races.
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* Indicates a future event. Starting Grid (pdf)
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Steve continued his run of podium finishes by securing a fine second place in the Le Mans 24 Hour World Endurance race over the weekend. Steve was drafted into the Honda France team to take the place of the injured Jean Michael Bayle who was unable to ride after sustaining a knee injury. But for a couple of crashes during the 24-hour affair could have been looking at the race win.
“Obviously I am still a little disappointed as we all were hoping for the win but Endurance Racing is one of those classes where anything and everything can happen so we have to be content with second place. But it’s my best result at Le Mans so I am happy with that. Most of the race was run in the wet and I did three double shifts on the bike during the 24 hours. The usual time on the bike is two hours but because I was going well they decided to keep me out there. I was happy enough to do the time as its all experience for me and will be useful as I ride a Honda Fireblade at the North West 200 and also the Isle of Man TT races later in the season.”
