Donington Park MotoGP: Chad denied British GP win by starting lights fiasco

MCN road tester Adam Child was denied a potential win at the British GP in the second GSX-R Trophy support race by a start-line mix-up.

Chad, we had qualified on pole in the dry on Friday in his maiden outing in the single-make middleweight series, crashed out of race one while leading, and then was black flagged in race two for jumping the start.

However, according to Chad, a number of start-line photographers and commentator Larry Carter, the red light did in fact go out on the start line to indicate the beginning of the race, but then came back on again.

Chad bolted of the front row, only for the remainder of the GSX-R Trophy field to remain sat on the start/finish straight.

By the time the rest of the field set off, Adam had already got round to McLeans thinking the rest of the pack were on his heels.

With a 20 second plus advantage, the race organisers black flagged Child, putting him out of the race and ending any chance he had of winning in front of a MotoGP crowd.

Chad said: “I crashed at Coppice in race one – just a low side mid-corner.

“The grip levels are so bad, the worst I’ve ever ridden on and that counts for road riding too.

“I’ve found more grip riding a ZZ41400 in the ice on destroyed tyres than I have here.

“I hurt my leg a bit in the crash and did some damage to the bike, but the mechanics got it sorted before the second race.

“I swear the lights went out, and so do a lot of other people.

“Gutted.”

It was a day of better fortunes for senior road tester Michael Neeves who racked up his best Henderson R1 Cup result of the season with a 10th and a 9th, but unfortunately no points count towards the championship this weekend.

And Bruce Dunn, who set a time good enough to be second on the grid on Friday in the MotoGB 2 race, had to sit out and watch Mark Davies destroy the rest of the field as Dunn’s entry was only as a reserve rider if anyone fell of before the races.

It was unfortunate for the spectators and Dunn as he looked like the only rider capable in the 250 two-stroke and small capacity four-stroke field to be able to trouble Davies.