Suzuki 2 Leads the Race At the end of this afternoon the race at Magny-Cours was proving to be full of drama. Shortly before 19h30 the two Suzuki Endurance Racing Team machines seemed to have a solid command of the race. Then Julien Da Costa, in the lead on the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team no.1, fell off after a collision with another motorcycle. The Suzuki 1 was reduced to a position of 36th, 13 laps behind the Suzuki 2 machine which took the lead ahead of the Yamaha GMT 94, the Kawasaki Bolliger Switzerland and the official Kawasaki 111. The Kawasakis 11 and 111, as well as the Yamaha GMT 94, had a difficult race start. At the beginning of the race, Vincent Philippe shot away from the start line ‘canon-style’ on the Suzuki 1. The Suzuki 2 rapidly followed suit, pursued by the two Kawasaki France machines. Before the end of the first hour the two Kawasaki machines, the 11 and the 111, lost their places up front due to a 30-second stop-and-go penalty which was imposed due to the late arrival of Kawasaki representatives to an obligatory briefing. The delay was further increased for the 111 team by a problem when refuelling for the first time. In the absence of Kawasaki, a close-fought battle took place up front between the two Suzuki Endurance Racing Team machines and the Yamaha GMT 94 during the second hour of the race, taking it in turns to lead. However, the challenge of the GMT 94 was put to a brutal stop at 17h00 when Olivier Four crashed out. The Yamaha 94 re-entered the race in seventh with Suzuki still in the lead. A short while afterwards, the Kawasaki France 11 lost a lot of time due to a fuel leakage. Julian Mazuecos and the 11 machine therefore dropped back from 3rd to 46th, 12 laps behind the leading Suzuki. Bad luck also struck Yamaha Austria steady in thirteenth place behind the Suzuki, the team was forced to retire at close to 19:00 hours due to a broken engine. Numerous incidents plagued this first part of the race at the mostly sunny Magny-Cours circuit. Having sat in 28th place, the BMW Motorrad 17 was relegated back to 40th after Rico Penzkofer crashed out. The same fate was suffered by Kawasaki Raffin Motos. There were also falls in the very first lap for the Suzuki des Sapeurs Pompiers and at 18h00 for the Suzuki RT Racing Team and Moto Virus, who were pushed back to 25th position. At 20:00 hours, Honda National Motos was in 5th position, ahead of Yamaha Phase One Endurance and the Suzuki LMS Junior Team, the first Superstock machine. Endurance Moto 38, the first Superproduction machine, was running steadily in 9th position. More, from a press release issued by Amadeus X One: Amadeus X One 7th in Class After 2 Hours Fantastic Fight for Second Place End in GMT94 Crash Team Amadeus X One are currenlty lying in seventh place in the Super Production class and 27th overall after two hours of racing at the Bol d’Or 24 Hour round of the world endurance championship at Magny Cours. The team of Paolo Tessari, Riccardo Ricci and Will Gruy have tried to maintain a consistent pace and avoid incidents during the hectic opening hours of the race, and apart from a minor brake problem they have achieved this. The race at the head of the field has been incident packed, with SERT Suzuki No.1 leading by just 16 seconds and the fight for second place between Yamaha GMT94 and SERT Suzuki No.2 ending with GMT94 crashing and dropping to 7th place after losing time repairing the bike. Kawasaki France No.11 and Yamaha Austria are currently in third and fourth place but GMT94 are already up to sixth and closing in on the No.111 Kawasaki. With more than 21 hours left to run, the race is still wide open.