After a lightning start from pole with Gregory Leblanc taking the lead at the 12 Horas de Portimão, Team Kawasaki SRC was forced to withdraw from the race with engine problems shortly after the halfway point.

“It’ll be a tough race,” Gilles Stafler had warned after Friday’s qualifying, even though Kawasaki SRC had picked up pole thanks to consistent performance by its team: Gregory Leblanc, Matthieu Lagrive and Fabien Foret. At the race start Saturday morning, Gregory Leblanc got a fantastic holeshot and left all his rivals behind, but had a shaky end to his stint because of a tyre choice unsuited to the high track temperature. The Kawasaki SRC riders tried their utmost to catch up in the course of the following stints, but their efforts were stymied when the bike ran out of fuel.

So they had to start from scratch. Stafler’s entire team gave the fight all they had. But the next alert was fatal. Says Stafler:

资料提供 [ Kawasaki Motors Europe ]