Podium Hopes Dashed for Cormac Buchanan at British Moto3 GP

Cormac Buchanan equalled his career-best Moto3 qualifying result with eighth on the grid at Silverstone.
The Kiwi remained in the battle around sixth despite an overheating problem believed to have been caused by another rider’s tear-off entering the airbox.
Buchanan says the British GP was one of the best weekends of his Moto3 career despite leaving without points.

Kiwi Moto3 racer Cormac Buchanan qualified eighth and believed a British GP podium was within reach before a freak technical problem brought his Silverstone charge to an early end.

New Zealand Moto3 racer Cormac Buchanan was left wondering what might have been at the British Grand Prix after a technical problem ended what had been one of his strongest weekends in the World Championship.

The 19-year-old Southlander qualified an impressive eighth at Silverstone, equalling his career-best starting position and putting himself firmly in contention for a strong points haul – or potentially even a podium.

But Buchanan’s hopes began to unravel almost as soon as the lights went out, with his CODE Motorsports machine suffering an overheating problem believed to have been caused by another rider’s tear-off being sucked into the airbox.

Despite losing speed on the straights, Buchanan managed to stay in touch with the group fighting for sixth before the bike finally cried enough with five laps remaining.

“I’ll be honest – my goal was to be on the podium on Sunday and I believe I had the tools to compete for that,” Buchanan said.

“It was very frustrating. 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 warm-up lap fine with no problems, but when I started the race the bike began overheating, so on 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 well as possible and managed to stay with the group fighting for P6, and we were battling in that group, which was good, so a top finish was definitely on the cards.

“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.”

Pace Provides Plenty of Positives

While the British GP ended without the result Buchanan wanted, the performance provided further evidence of the Kiwi’s growing pace as he continues his recovery from the serious back injury he sustained in March.

Buchanan had been competitive from the opening session at Silverstone and carried the momentum he’d built at the German round before the summer break.

Saturday proved particularly impressive.

After safely negotiating Q1, Buchanan went into the closing stages of Q2 without a lap time on the board and with just one tyre available.

There was no room for error.

His first flying lap produced a 2m10.3s before he found even more on his final attempt. Despite losing two-tenths in the opening sector, Buchanan produced his fastest-ever final two sectors to record a 2m09.8s and secure eighth on the Moto3 grid.

The time was just 0.7 seconds away from the fastest lap of the weekend.

“Q2 – what a session, honestly,” Buchanan said. “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.

“It was a really, really good job from the team, who worked super well to put me in that window. It was good to build on Germany by putting together two solid qualifying performances back-to-back, feeling very in control.”

His race pace looked equally promising. Even while dealing with a bike that was progressively overheating, Buchanan remained with the group battling around sixth position until the mechanical problem eventually forced him out.

“You have to look at the positives,” he said. “Being able to fight up the front with that technical problem – one which really hampered us – just shows how strong we were.

“On the other hand, it’s incredibly frustrating because it shows what we could have achieved.

“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.

“Okay, we didn’t get the result on Sunday, but we showed everyone what we can do and the team and I are working on a good trajectory.

“Honestly, it was probably one of the best weekends I’ve done in my Moto3 career.”

Ready to Fight at the Front

CODE Motorsports was equally encouraged by Buchanan’s performance despite leaving Silverstone without any championship points.

The team said the Kiwi had demonstrated he had the speed necessary to compete at the front of the Moto3 field and believes the performance can be maintained through the final stages of the season.

“We leave Silverstone without the reward of points, but with the certainty that the work is paying off,” the team said.