A freak scenario appears to have robbed Southland motorcycle racer Cormac Buchanan in Sunday’s Moto3 World Championship race at Silverstone. After achieving a career-equal best qualifying of eighth, the New Zealander was poised to fight for a strong points haul and had shown impressive pace throughout the weekend. However, a technical fault forced him to retire two-thirds through the 15-lap race. Buchanan said his goal was to make the podium, but when the “lights went out’’ he knew it was over. “It was very frustrating,’’ Buchanan said. “We’re not completely sure what happened yet — we think another rider’s tear off got sucked into the airbox which is never ideal. I do feel robbed, but the reality is the team couldn’t have done anything, I couldn’t have done anything. “I went through the sighting lap and the warmup lap fine with no problems, but when I started the race the bike began overheating … so in the straights I was losing a lot of speed and was like a sitting duck. “It was very difficult and I had to do all of my work on the braking. I did my best to manage it as best as possible and managed to stay with the group fighting for P6. “With five laps to go, the bike eventually gave out and to be honest I was expecting it. The bike just kept overheating and eventually it just blew its guts.” Despite the technical gremlins, Buchanan rated the weekend highly overall. “You have to look at the positives. Being able to fight up the front with that technical problem — one which really hampered us — it just shows how strong we were. On the other hand, it’s incredibly frustrating because it shows what we could have achieved today. “We take the good with the bad, because that’s racing. Everything we did this weekend was a big step forward and we executed an almost perfect weekend. “Honestly, it was probably one of the best weekends I’ve done in my Moto3 career.” His CODE Motorsports team agreed, praising Buchanan’s performance in a post-race statement. “Our young talent confirmed his candidacy for the front of the pack. Despite suffering a technical setback that progressively hampered his bike’s performance, Cormac remained steadfast in the fight. "Nevertheless, his on-track performance clearly demonstrated that he has the necessary skill to compete at the top of the championship standings, a level of performance that the team is confident of maintaining consistently in the final stretch of the season,” they said. Manu TormoNew Zealand grand prix racer Cormac Buchanan in action at the BritishGP at Silverstone, racing for CODE Motorsports. Photo: Manu Tormo For Buchanan, it was testament to his building momentum as he recovers from a serious back injury sustained in March. “From the first session I was able to pick up from where we left in Germany before the summer break and the feeling on the bike was really good,” he said. “On Friday afternoon we had a plan, we just couldn’t execute it. There was a lot of wind which made things more difficult but we just couldn’t find the right position on track. We were pretty close to passing to Q2 and I knew I would probably be able to pass through Q1. And the extra track time wouldn’t hurt us.” It turned into a super Saturday for the 19-year-old Southlander. “In FP2 we did one long run with the race tyres riding alone and we were able to lap within one or two tenths of a second so the consistent pace was there and it set us up really well for the race. My fastest was on lap 11 so it meant we were in a good space for Sunday. “Q1 was stressful as always . . . but we managed to pass calmly. “Q2 — what a session honestly. I didn’t have a lap time going into the last five minutes and only had one tyre so there was no room for mistakes there. The first flying lap was decent and my best of the weekend with a 2.10.3 but there was certainly more in it. “On the next lap, which was my last lap, in sector one I was two tenths slower and at that point I thought that was the lap gone. But in the end I managed to pull something out and get a really good last two sectors — the fastest I’ve ever done — for a 2.09.8 and P8 on the grid.” It was just 0.7sec off the fastest time set for the weekend. “We have Aragon in a couple of weeks which is a track we love and we already know that the goal is going to be to replicate what we achieved here.” — Allied Media
