The Triple M Honda World Superbike team finished the European rounds of what is a rookie season for both team and rider in the WorldSBK Championship with important lessons learned for the final two rounds of the year.
The challenges of the Magny-Cours circuit were new for the Triple M team and PJ Jacobsen, and after Friday practice, Jacobsen qualified 17th of 21 riders on the grid, after Superpole 1 on Saturday morning.
The opening race took place at 13.00, the Sunday race at the new normal of 15.15, with each lasting for 21-laps of the 4.411km circuit in the very heart of the French countryside.
Moving up to 15th position in race one, a position he held from lap three to lap six; PJ would eventually drop down one place to finish 16th, and just one position away from scoring a championship point.
The second race, held in only slightly warmer conditions, saw PJ ride behind his countryman Jake Gagne for a time, ending up 17th and again just missing a championship point.
After 11 of the 13 rounds, PJ sits 19th overall in the championship standings.
WorldSBK will hold the next round in Argentina for the very first time, at the all-new El Villicum circuit, between 12th and 14th October.

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The Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team came away from Race 1 at Magny-Cours with a double points finish after Leon Camier claimed eleventh place, with Jake Gagne close behind in thirteenth position.
Earlier in the day, both riders showed improved pace from yesterday with Camier topping Superpole 1, with Gagne only a few tenths behind in P4. Camier would ultimately qualify in eleventh place for Race 1 with a best time of 1’37.398 in Superpole 2.
Starting from eleventh and fourteenth on the grid respectively for Race 1, Camier and Gagne managed to make up places in the opening lap, both riders finding themselves in the fight for the top ten in the early stages.
Unfortunately for Camier, he had a moment after Rinaldi crashed on the third lap, losing a couple of seconds which cost him several positions. Despite improving his pace after this setback, eleventh place was the the British rider could manage on the day.
Gagne was able to lap at a similar to his teammate for long periods in the race, before a lack of grip caused him to slow in the final few laps, with the American crossing the finish line in thirteenth place.
After today’s race, Camier moves to 95 championship points and is thirteenth in the championship standings, while Gagne is in seventeeth place in the riders championship on 51 points.
The riders will be looking to challenge for a top ten place in Race 2 tomorrow which starts at 1515 local time (GMT +2).

from Aldo Wetsch 

IAM RoadSmart has expressed its disappointment in yet another year without progress in the numbers of people killed and seriously injured on the roads in the UK.

IAM RoadSmart, the UK’s biggest independent road safety charity, said that although cars are getting safer and there has been a step change in new road investment, careless human behaviour and increasing traffic levels are cancelling this out.

This morning (27 September) the Department of Transport announced that there was 1793 reported road deaths in 2017, an increase of 1 on 2016 (reference 1).

There were 24,831 people seriously injured in reported road traffic accidents in 2017 and 170,993 casualties of all severities.

Neil Greig, IAM RoadSmart director of policy and research, said: “Although the number of casualties of all severities in reported road traffic accidents in 2017 is 6% lower than in 2016 and is the lowest level on record, the number of fatalities has increased, albeit by just 1.

“We appear to have reached a hard core of human behaviour related crashes that requires much more focus on driver training and quality if we are to make progress towards a long term vision of zero deaths on our roads. Road safety in the UK seems to be bumping along the floor with yet another year without real improvement in key fatal injury statistics.

“With seven years without progress it is clear that we have an increasingly complex picture of good news, such as safer cars and investment in new roads, being cancelled out by more traffic and a hard core of human behaviour issues that are the most difficult to tackle.

“Road safety is everyone’s responsibility and it is clear that working in partnership to promote it is the key to returning to long term downward trends. More incentives for post-test training, consistent enforcement of new motoring laws, accelerating the uptake of AEB (autonomous emergency braking) equipped cars and promoting best practice in driving for work are just a few examples of the quick gains that could be achieved.”