were the team orders?' when Me-
landri took 10 points off Guintoli,
now it was 'why did they spoil it
with team orders?' but most of
the large (74,000 wet spectators
over the weekend) French crowd
were just happy Guintoli won at
VOL. 51 ISSUE 40 OCTOBER 7, 2014 P53
Briefly...
Magny-Cours extended its contract
with World Superbike until 2020, in a
vote of confidence in the champion-
ship that underlines that fact that the
track has a big crowd every year, de-
spite the race being held in October.
The circuit is undergoing a 12 million
Euro revamp to the pits and paddock
area, which will return it to the lead-
ing edge of racetrack facilities.
Tom Sykes explained his crash in
the Saturday afternoon free practice
session as a good old-fashioned bale
off. "I came across Fabien on the
Evo bike. I wanted to complete the
lap so I went around the outside on
the fast final left. I was carrying a little
bit too much speed into the final two
corners, and too much lean angle. I
lost the rear and instead of trying to
correct - and end up with a highside
- I squeezed the rear brake and laid
it down lightly. I am sure I could have
corrected it, but 95 percent it would
have been a massive highside, and
we did not need that today."
Confirmation came from the Magny-
Cours Circuit Director Serge Saulni-
er that there would be no Bol d'Or at
Magny anymore, but they would have
their own round of the endurance
World Championship sometime in
June. "The contract ended in 2014,
last event this year, and we were not
happy with our collaboration with the
[Bol d'Or] organizers. We decided to
do our own event. It will be a World
Endurance Championship race,
which will be named the 12 Hours of
Magny-Cours. The date should be
in June. If we can at the beginning
of June, but the problem then is that
it is the TT, so some teams would
prefer the end of June. But we wait
for the World Superbike calendar to
continued on next page
The first of two World Superbike races at a
wet and cold Magny-Cours gets started with
Jonathan Rea (65) blasting into the lead over
Marco Melandri (33), Tom Sykes (1), Davide
Giugliano (34) and the rest of the pack.
double win, as he backed off in
race one under team orders (that
were also very much absent in
Valencia), to allow Guintoli to
close the gap on points leader
Tom Sykes.
In Valencia people said 'where
