Phase One struggle

Britain’s leading World Endurance team Phase One finished this weekend’s Le Mans 24-hour round of the QMMF FIM Endurance World Championship in ninth place.

This was after an epic fight from Aussie pair Glen Richards and Warwick Nowland plus Belgian’s Didier van Keymeulen to recover from mechanical set backs.

Team owner Russell Benney said: “We qualified in seventh place, got up to sixth in the early hours of the race, but eventually finished ninth.

“The only problem we suffered was the failure of two cam cover bolts. Each one cost us five minutes, and we finally stopped for a further five minutes to replace the rest of the cam cover bolts as a precaution and this dropped us to 48th place.

“After that we had a tremendous, consistent and fast fight through the field that pulled us up to tenth with five hours to go and we had a fantastic scrap with the French “Sapeurs Pompiers” (Fire Brigade) team to take ninth .

“We didn’t let our closest rivals Yamaha Austria out of our sight and we now know we have the potential to run faster than them – we just failed to consolidate this advantage.

“We have a great foundation for Albacete in two weeks time and then the rest of the season. It was also good to see such a big crowd at Le Mans, and to have so many of our British supporters visit us during and before the race. “