MotoGP 2006 - Round Three

Australia’s Ant West was delayed by two incidents on the opening lap before recovering to finish 11th in the 250cc French Motorcycle Grand Prix at Le Mans today.

West started the fifth round of the 250cc world championship from 13th position on the grid, but was twice slowed on the first lap when riders crashed in front of him.

The 24-year-old dropped back to 17th after the opening lap, but then launched a recovery on his non-factory Kiefer-BOS Racing Aprilia. He improved to 11th by lap 11 and held that position for the remainder of the race.

West completed the 26-lap event in a time of 44-minutes 21.805-seconds, finishing 39.032-seconds behind the race-winning Humangest Racing Honda of Japan’s Yuki Takahashi. The fastest lap time West recorded during the race was 1-minute 41.265-seconds around the 4.1km circuit.

West, who finished ninth in the previous two rounds in Turkey and China, scored five world championship points for his result at Le Mans. He improved his world championship points tally to 19 and remained 13th overall in the series. Italian Andrea Dovizioso leads with 92 points on a Humangest Racing Honda.

The sixth round of this year’s championship is at Mugello in Italy on June 4. Before then West will test with his team at Germany’s Sachsenring track this Wednesday and Thursday. Sachsenring will be the venue for the German round of the world championship on July 16.

ANT WEST QUOTES: "On the first lap I was pushed wide at the chicane when some riders started running into each other. There was no room to move and I had to slow down, which cost me some positions. A couple of corners later someone ‘high-sided’ in front of me. I thought I was going to hit him, but I managed to get through. The guy beside me did hit the other bike. These things can happen when you qualify mid-field and everyone is bunched up on the first lap. I’ve got to qualify better. Once I got going again I was 17th, and then I started to pass some bikes. By the time I got up to 11th, the next bike in front of me was 10-seconds ahead and the gap was too big. We struggled here in practice and qualifying with my bike set-up, so we tried moving the pivot of the swing-arm for the race. Unfortunately it didn’t improve anything. We are testing this week and hopefully we can get some good settings for the Sachsenring – that will be an important race for my team because it’s their ‘home’ grand prix.”