22 April 2007
Round 1 – Le Mans 24hrs France
Diablo 666 Kawasaki finished 7th in the 2007 World Endurance Championship racing 2 year old ZX-10?s. The Team knew that the bikes were getting very long in the tooth.

For the start of the 2007 season, the Team had acquired brand new latest spec ZX-10 bikes and boy did they look the business. The Team are hoping to be challenging at every round this year for the overall championship.

This year the riders are once again James Hutchins and Alex Cudlin with Olivier Ullman, who deputised so well at this race last year for James, now being the permanent third member of the team.

After tough free and qualifying practices the Team had qualified 16th on the grid out of 67 entrants. The Le Mans 24hrs continues to grow year by year. The Diablo bikes are still very much in standard trim so Team Principal Miles Hutchins was very pleased indeed.

After just two laps disaster struck the Diablo 666 Team. Olivier Ulmann crashed the bike very heavily but still managed to ride the bike back to the pit garage. The damage was mainly superficial but meant a lengthy stop in the garage. Fortunately for the Team the pace car stayed out and only four laps were lost before Ulmann stormed out of pit lane but down in 54th place.

With James Hutchins and Alex Cudlin both putting in storming laps the Team slowly but surely began climbing through the field eventually with Alex climbing up to 28th place before handing over to Olivier Ulmann for his second stint. At 7:15 Olivier once again crashed. After another bodywork rebuild, James Hutchins returned to the race way down in 46th place.

The fight back continued right the way through the race with the Team eventually finishing in 19th position, unfortunately out of the points after such a valiant effort by the whole team.

The race was a Suzuki benefit with the Sert No.2 bike beating the SERT No. 1 bike by just one lap with Kawasaki France in third place, again a further lap down.

Diablo 666 will be out for the next round in Albacete in Spain in just two weeks time.

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