The Biker Place

GOWLA AND PHASE ONE HAVE HIGH HOPES

Graeme Gowland makes his debut in the World Endurance Championship this weekend riding for the three-times Championship winning team Phase One at Oschersleben, Germany.

Gowla has already made an impact on the World Endurance scene after posting the 4th fastest time in his group during the first qualifying session at the German circuit on the Yamaha R1.

Unfortunately the British Phase One team have qualified in 24th place for the 8 Hour race after only bringing in their third rider during the final and wet qualifying session.

Regular rider Damian Cudlin and world endurance newcomer Gowla showed the potential to put the team into seventh place overall but third rider Sebastien Scarnato’s only qualifying session was held on a drying track, affecting his lap times and knocking back the team’s average qualifying time.

Team manager Russell Benny explains: “I’m happy with the way qualifying has gone, and it’s been lovely discovering a new British rider and introducing him to our sport. Graeme Gowland has turned out to be just a few tenths quicker than Damian Cudlin, which was beyond my expectations, and taking both of their times we would have qualified in the top seven. We’re further down because we only brought Sebastien Scarnato in at the last minute in a wet qualifying session. Because the grid is based on aggregated times we’re down in 24th place.

“I think once the race gets under way we will show our true form. As is normal for our team we’ve been setting the best time on race rubber rather than on qualifying tyres, so I’m extremely pleased with the 1:29.0 we’ve done on race tyres. I’m not aware that anyone other than SERT Suzuki has done 1:29 flat on race tyres, so I’ve got great hopes for the race.”

The 8 hour race begins at 15:00 CET, 14:00 BST, on Saturday. More information and live results are available via Race 2 and the official Championship website FIM Endurance

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