NEWS
17/11/2009
MOTO2 RACE DEBUT FOR GOWLA
Graeme Gowland made a return to the Spanish Championship at the weekend when he teamed up once again with the Honda Joe Darcey Team, with whom he won the 2007 Spanish Supersport Championship, who are working together with FTR (Fabrication Techniques Racing) to produce a race-winning Moto2 contender. Moto2 is the all-new race class in MotoGP next year, replacing the 250's, with the machines being race prototypes.
The penultimate round of the Spanish Championship was held at the Jerez circuit in the south of the country where Gowla finished an impressive fourth in the Moto2 class and thirteenth overall against a field of 1000cc Extreme bikes.
This was the first full race for the FTR Moto2 machine and Gowla finished just 3.5 secs behind the first-placed Moto2 machine after 17 laps of the 2.752-mile circuit and ahead of current Grand Prix rider Joan Olive.
"I'm really pleased with the way the FTR machine went in the race. I managed to get through the field a bit in the first half of the race and was hoping to finish even higher but as the tyres became worn then the characteristic of the machine changed" said Gowland.
"In all I think we have to be happy with what we've achieved this weekend. It's the first time for all of us at Jerez with the machine and my first race weekend with the FTR prototype so the result is pretty good. We've learned a lot and further developed the machine so, overall, great progress."
Gowland was 19th fastest in the opening qualifying session then improved to qualify in 18th and in the race he further improved his lap time from qualifying by 0.2s.
Graeme will be in action again this coming weekend at the Valencia circuit when the Championship draws to a close.
FTR director Steve Bones said: "We're over the moon with just how far we've come in such a short space of time.
"Graeme did the perfect job this weekend and it's credit to him and the Joe Darcey Team that we're able to move on to Valencia now with plenty of optimism.
"The interest in the machine has been overwhelming and we've quite a few riders now wanting us to organise tests for them so they can give the M209 a run for themselves."
