Qualifying: After a few changes to the suspension and brake balance, we head out for a series of fast laps. We take pole position with a time of 1'43'1 — a new sidecar lap record!
Race 1: A great start, we manage to keep first place into the Dunlop chicane. The Ellis/Clément crew is right behind us; they attack early on lap 2, but we strike back at the next corner and stay in front all the way to the chequered flag, 1.5 seconds ahead of the Schlosser/Schmidt pairing. After the race, the Schlosser/Schmidt crew lodges a protest about our engine. The normal procedure would have been to seal the engine and have it checked after race 2. They insist and we are forced to open up the engine (cylinder head...). These are hardly ideal conditions for rebuilding an engine during a race weekend... and with the schedule tight around the 24 Heures Motos, there is no warm-up before race 2, so it is impossible to fit a new engine before Saturday's race.
Race 2: After the warm-up lap, oil leaks from our machine and we have to leave the starting grid... We manage to fix the problem but are forced to start from the back of the grid. We make a good start but unfortunately the engine fails at the Dunlop chicane...
