Donington, 22 June 2008: the LCR Honda MotoGP rider Randy De Puniet got the final 12th place in today’s 30-lap British Grand Prix at Donington Park. The eight round of the season started today at 15:00 local time and was held in dry conditions with cloudy skies and wind speed of 40Km/h.

De Puniet qualified eight in this morning warm up session at the 4.024Km but started 14th aboard his Michelin-shod Honda RC212V nr.14. After a good start the 27-year-old lost some positions because of Toseland’s crash ahead him and struggled for the rest of the race with the bike set-up. The LCR team will now move to Netherland for next GP at Assen historic circuit.


De Puniet – 12th: “It was a difficult race for me. After the start, when Toseland crashed I was behind him and went wide loosing some positions. After that I lost some confidence and was not easy passing the other riders especially in the braking points. On lap 7 I was behind Hopkins and West but could not pass them because the bike was to heavy and could not change directions easily and could not brake as late as I wanted. I struggled for the rest of the race trying to set good lap times without making any mistake. On the last lap some people started to run close to the race track and I lost the concentration for a while so Elias passed me on the straight. This is not a brilliant performance but after the crashes we had in the recent races we are trying to set up the bike in the right way but we still miss something. We will work it out in Assen in the next days”.

Race Classification:

1 Stoner
2 Rossi
3 Pedrosa
4 Edwards
5 Dovizioso
6 Lorenzo
7 Hayden
8 Vermeulen
9 Nakano
10 West
11 Elias
12 De Puniet
13 Guintoli
14 Spies
15 De Angelis
16 Melandri
17 Toseland

OUT: Hopkins