COMMUNIQU DE PRESSE

A bitter forfeit
The black cat is back
Oschersleben, August 11th 2012. After his win two weeks ago, Greg was particularly looking forward to this 8h race which is part of the Endurance World Championship. However, despite a clear improvement in performance, this enthusiasm did not last long.
During the free training sessions, Greg and his co-riders, Gregg Black and Luca de Carolis, managed to constantly improve the bike to get closer to the top riders. "We are back in our right place" The qualifying sessions confirmed this trend as the 3 riders signed homogeneous and rapid times. Overall, the team Maco qualifies 7th on the starting grid, just behind the official teams. Everybody was very satisfied with this performance. Greg was designated to take the start on Saturday at 2pm. All was running smoothly at the beginning of the race, but soon the bike started to bug. Greg had to hit the box, losing 12 minutes to an electronic problem, before going back on the racetrack: last. From there a long ride back to the top started, with the 3 pilots managing times amongst the 6 fastest. Never ending problems Around the second half of the race, as Greg was battling for the 20th position, the chain broke and completely destroyed the engine crankcase. Greg still makes it back to the box, entirely covered in oil. It becomes quickly obvious that the damages are too important to be addressed and the team is thus forced to quit the race. The deception is immense: It is absolutely incredible! Never, in my 10 years career, have I ever seen a chain break! Being so consistently unlucky, I almost feel lucky it did not hit my arm or something If anyone knows some voodoo master or a wizard, Im in! Jokes apart though, the problems we had at the beginning of the season are almost resolved now and we are finally achieving the performances we wanted. With that in mind, I cannot help but stay optimistic: IT WILL WORK! And if it could work at Le Mans Next Round: August 19th in Rijeka (CRO).