The Biker Place

British youngster Graeme Gowland had another promising weekend turn into a nightmare after he was disqualified from the penultimate round of the World Supersport Championship at the French circuit of Magny-Cours.

Gowla had provisionally qualified just off the fourth row in 17th after the first qualifying session on Friday, but he was just 0.2 seconds off the top 10, and after a positive second free practice session on Saturday morning he was confident at improving his grid slot.

However he was not able to do this as he was called up for a hearing in front of the organising body FG Sport after a protest was lodged against him in regards to a breach of a testing rule. The rule states you can only test on three circuits in a season and these must be submitted by the team at the start of the season. Graeme had competed in the famous Bol d’Or endurance race at the same circuit three weeks previously and although this was on a 1000cc endurance bike on a different manufacture of tyres and with a different team it was deemed as a test by the board and as the Magny-Cours circuit is not one of his team’s three test tracks he was found guilty of breaching the rule and disqualified from the event.

Graeme Gowland:

Obviously I am absolutely gutted to have been excluded and not able to race especially after things were going a lot better this weekend. I was completely unaware that by competing in the Bol d’Or I was breaking any rules. I knew that I was only allowed to test on the three tracks the team submits but it never crossed my mind that competing in the endurance race here would be classed as testing as it is on a totally different bike, a 1000cc, and with different tyres. The rule seems to be a very grey area and at the hearing they said it would be changing for next year.

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