The 2nd race of the season for Phase One Endurance took place at the Albacete Circuit in southern Spain. After a poor finish at Le Mans due to two crashes, it was essential to achieve a good points haul to get the championship back on the road.
The winter testing with Dunlop had achieved a good setup in Albacete and we hoped this would put us in a better position than some of the competition, due to the lack of track time in the two day schedule. However this theory was questioned when we arrived at the circuit in torrential rain.
Practice and qualifying came and went without any problems and we found ourselves in 9th position after combining the partly wet 1st qualifying with the fairly dry 2nd. After second qualifying finished we had around 3 hrs to prepare the bike for the race. This process has been known to take well over 12hrs, but as I had already completed alot of the preparations in the workshop, we were ready well in advance of the race.
The rain had started after qualifying 2 and never stopped long enough for intermediate tyres until well after the race finished. In fact there was so much water on the track that the race was started behind a safety car.
In the first rota the safety car came out around 40 minutes in, and this combined with the wet conditions made for a very low fuel consumption and a first rota length of around 1hr40 minutes. Cudlin’s strong start had placed us 5th at the first pitstop.
Haydon then put in a very strong ride, and was able to lap in the top 3 fastest on track all rota. Until during the last few laps of his rota he went off line to improve his visibility through the spray of a bike in front, and crashed.
When Haydon crashed we had just gained second place and it was almost exactly 3hrs in. Haydon brought the bike in to the pit and it looked ok except for the fairing and headlight, so we performed a routine stop and sent cudlin out while we prepared the necaserry spares and planned a quick repair stop, this was carried out in around 2 minutes. Cudlin then crashed after half a rota or so, then Haydon twice more.
After the fourth crash it was clear that we couldn’t get any points, and we didn’t want to use all of the spares up as the Isle of Mann TT was only one weekend at the workshop away. For these reasons, and the simple fact that we could not allow the bike to crash at the rate it was without injury, Phase One abandoned the race.
The objective of a good points haul has not been achieved, and Phase One’s Championship hopes are now firmly off the road, upside down, and on fire. Now team manager Russell Benney must decide if he wants to keep in the top ten at all costs and protect the team’s permanent status. Or go all out at each race and show how competitive Phase One bikes are. Damian Cudlin will certainly continue as lead rider, the choice of team mates may be very telling.
Tags: Albacete 6hr, Craig Reilly, Damian Cudlin, Endurance World Championship, James Haydon, Phase One Endurance, Race Ready Industries
