Podium man Plater on Le Mans

Steve Plater took a brilliant third at Le Mans on Sunday, top Brit in the 24-hour race. Here’s how he saw it.

“It was a bit of an up and down race because we had to play catch-up after the first two hours. We tested a new fuel warning light pre-season which tells the rider there is five litres of fuel left to give maybe one and half laps before we need to pit.

I was doing the second session of the race when the fuel light came on 12 laps too early but I thought I had better play it safe and stop to have it checked over.

Gwen Gabbiani stared the race but had two safety sessions to cope with so we didn’t really get an indication of fuel consumption anyway.

By the time I stopped and tried to explain the problem, our third rider (Spaniard) Julian Mazuecos had jumped on the bike and was gone. Sure enough, he came back in with the fuel light on so we had lost about a lap within two hours.

For the next 22 hours we were just flat out trying to pick up time. Julian was really impressive. It was his first time on a superbike and he was fast as f***. He set the fastest lap of the race.

Scott Smart came out as out fourth rider but never got to race. Gwen had been injured in a Franch national race and was a bit uncertain but he did a few laps at Le Mans and quickly gained confidence so he did the race and Smartie had to take it on the chin.

We got third but I think Suzuki realise we’re back with a bang. The bonus for us is that their race winning team aren’t doing the full series the points gap from us to their other team is minimal in terms of the championship.”