Sebastien Pourcel - 5th place in South Africa.

Moving from Sun City to Nelspruit, the South African Grand Prix was back on the calendar after a break last season and the entire paddock appreciated the new venue in the Mpumalanga province, situated about 350 kilometres from Johannesburg. According to the riders the track was one of the best of the year so far and even if he didn’t collect a podium result Sébastien Pourcel enjoyed this new experience.

Like most of the riders, the Frenchman suffered in the qualifying session with the low winter sun that affected his vision on the track. He posted the fourth fastest lap time in his last attempt without taking any risks on this nice but technical layout. Fastest during the warm-up session on Sunday morning, Seb lost all his chances at the start of the first moto when Coppins crashed and took down several riders including the GPKR representative!

Last to start, Seb was 24th in the opening lap and produced a strong effort to come back to 10th position after four laps. Then it became more difficult to pass but Seb made two more positions up before the finish.

His second start was much better and after a few corners he was fourth behind MacKenzie. On a rougher track he took his time to pass him and then reduced the gap between himself and Nagl but couldn’t take second place. With an 8-3 scorecard he was fifth overall and will arrive at Lommel in two weeks time sixth in the MX1 World Championship with five more GPs to go.

Sébastien Pourcel: “It was not a great weekend for me and I was expecting better results. I collided with Coppins after the start of the first heat and we crashed with some local riders. I came back to eighth position but then I felt tired and I was unable to keep the same speed and challenge Mackenzie, Leok and De Dycker for fifth place.

“I started the next race in the top 10, did a fast opening lap to move to fourth and then passed MacKenzie at mid-race. Then I tried to overtake Nagl but he made a mistake and I nearly crashed as I was right behind him. I was tired after the first heat, it was hot here and that’s one of the first times we have had such good weather. The track was perfect, the riders had fun riding here and it offered good racing to the spectators.”

Roger Pourcel: “It’s the first time we came here to Nelspruit and the organisers did a great job to prepare the layout and we enjoyed staying here in the real Africa. We got great support from Michel Casanova - a former French rider - who lives here now and helped us during our trip. Concerning the racing, Seb lost all his chances of a podium finish with a crash at the first start. He came back to eighth and could have got a better result but he gave too much energy in the first part of the race.

“The second race was better and he did a great opening lap to come fourth and then finished third. It’s better than Sweden but he could have got a podium if he hadn’t crashed at the first start. Now we’ll work hard to prepare for the next round in Lommel.”

http://www.kawasaki-racingteam.eu/motocross/gpkr/news.asp?Id=B63655BBBC


MX1 results of Nelspruit, South Africa
Race 1
1 Steve Ramon - Suzuki
2 David Philippaerts - Yamaha
3 Jonathan Barragan - KTM
4 Maximilian Nagl - KTM
5 Ken De Dycker - Suzuki
8 Sébastien Pourcel - Kawasaki

Race 2
1 Jonathan Barragan - KTM
2 Maximilian Nagl - KTM
3 Sébastien Pourcel - Kawasaki
4 Joshua Coppins - Yamaha
5 Billy Mackenzie - Honda

Overall in South Africa
1 Jonathan Barragan - KTM
2 Maximilian Nagl - KTM
3 Steve Ramon - Suzuki
4 David Philippaerts - Yamaha
5 Sébastien Pourcel - Kawasaki


MX 1 standing after Nelspruit (Klasemen Sementara)

MX1 standings after Nelspruit
1 David Philippaerts - Yamaha - 339
2 Steve Ramon - Suzuki - 328
3 Joshua Coppins - Yamaha - 316
4 Ken De Dycker - Suzuki - 296
5 Jonathan Barragan - KTM - 284
6 Sébastien Pourcel - Kawasaki - 274

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