Round 7 – World Championship –
St Jean d'Angely, France - 15 June 2008

Simpson closing in on world championship top four after French showing

Team KTM UK left the Grand Prix of France – the seventh round of fifteen in the FIM Motocross Championship – with reason to feel content after Shaun Simpson and James Noble took 9th and 14th across the slippery and treacherous stones of the St Jean d’Angely circuit near the west coast.

Watched by 30,000 spectators in warm but cloudy conditions, Simpson rued an unlucky weekend which should have seen the Scot climb the podium for the second time this season, and of his career. Promising speed was shown by the 20 year old on Saturday when he fought back from a first corner crash in his qualification heat to easily make the cut within the top twelve.

Simpson produced a set of blistering starts from the gate for both of Sunday’s 35 minute and 2 lap motos. The first outing saw the SXSF rider circulating as leader for four of twenty-one laps. He was overhauled by factory KTM racer Tommy Searle but was comfortably sitting in second position deep into the sprint until a very small mistake through the short whoops section saw him career off the track and swallow green fencing in his rear wheel. Losing time to restart he disappointingly crossed the finish line down in 17th.

Simpson regrouped for the second affair in the afternoon and again shot away from the line. Running third, with two works bikes and double world champion Antonio Cairoli for company, he pushed hard to secure 4th spot by the flag in a largely solitary race.

“The weekend was not too bad but it was definitely a missed opportunity,” he commented. “Coming here I was quite excited because I seem to do quite well at this track but on Saturday it was shocking; there were no lines, it was fast, hard, dusty - a typical French track - and the local riders and the Italians were loving it....and I wasn’t! I made a mess of the qualifying race by going down on the first corner but came back through quite well.”

“I got two mega starts from quite a lowly gate position,” he continued. “The first race was going great. After Tommy passed me I felt like I was settling into a nice rhythm when I made a stupid mistake over the top section which I am regretting big-time because I would have made the podium otherwise. The second race was OK. I had another good start and then lost a little bit of ground to the boys ahead; still, it was more decent points for the championship.”

James Noble continues to improve his race pace in the MX1 class and once more showed resilience and application in the second of the two races. The Englishman struggled to get going in the initial foray and could do no better than 16th after a small crash caused him to drop out of the top ten. Moto2 was far better as he started brightly and went on to register 9th; his best classification of the season to-date.

“It was quite good today,” he commented. “In all the years I have been coming here I always seemed to struggle and results around 14th, 15th or 16th were the norm and I’m not sure why. I am having problems with my arms in the first races at the moment – I just feel weak -and that is a bit of a mystery. In the second moto I was like a different rider and I felt strong all the way; attacking the track. Things are starting to snowball for me now and I hope they will get better and better.”

Simpson is still 5th and just 7 points away from the top four of the world championship, while Noble is climbing the MX1 table and currently rests in 17th.

“I am really happy with how things are going and the profile of the team has risen to a point that we had not anticipated before the season,” said Team Principal Roger Magee.

“We have had great assistance from KTM, both in the UK and direct from the factory, and with the additional sponsorship from Red Bull, Discover Ireland, Motorex, Bott & Michelin we have lifted things to a higher level. This is due to the hard work of both Shaun and James and with Alex Snow also leading the British Under-21 championship. We are getting the results that we are capable of. We are looking forward to the second half of the season now.”

After several weeks on the continent the team will now head back to the UK and specifically Northern Ireland and the Desertmartin circuit for the fifth round of eight in the Maxxis ACU British Championship next Sunday. Simpson is currently second in the MX2 contest and could well benefit from the shoulder injury to main title rival Stephen Sword.