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+--- Thread: Reeves and Cluze Champions, But the Battle goes on for Third (/showthread.php?tid=17926)
Reeves and Cluze Champions, But the Battle goes on for Third - Malcolm - 13-09-2014
![[Image: chairsprelemans1.jpg]](http://www.ttwebsite.com/gifs/chairsprelemans1.jpg)
On 20 September, the 4.185 Km Bugatti circuit in Le-Mans, France, will host the final round of the 2014 FIM Sidecar World Championship. There will be an 18 lap race on Saturday morning, before the start of the famous “24 Heures Moto” for solo motorcycles.
The last round in Oschersleben, Germany, saw Tim Reeves and Gregory Cluze lift the 2014 title with a points tally that cannot now be beaten. They came away from Germany with two second places giving them a total of 201 points going into this race. Reeves has won 5 World titles in the F1 class now, and this will be the first for Cluze, and also the first time a Frenchman as passenger has won the title. It is also the first time a Kawasaki powered machine has won the title, breaking Suzuki’s eleven-year run. Reeves and Cluze will still want to put on a good show for the massive spectator attendance at this meeting, and a win here would be a fairytale finish to the season for Frenchman Cluze, at his home GP in front of his home crowd. The Anglo-French pairing of Reeves and Cluze did not have it all their own way though, as their closest rivals Ben and Tom Birchall fought till the end to try and clinch the title. They have a points total of 160 going into this round, and having won the last three of four races, they will be wanting to finish the season on a high. If the last four races are anything to go by, the spectators are going to be in for a treat as they watch the two top teams battle for a win.
With the two top places in the championship decided, the battle for third is not over yet and with only six points separating third and fourth places, it is all to fight for. Uwe Gurck and Manfred Wechselberger are sitting in third with 104 points. The team have had a good season, standing on the podium twice this year so far, and they will want to hold on to this third in the championship. They will be fighting hard to keep the fourth-place team of Bennie Streuer and Geert Koerts on 98 points from knocking them off this placing. Streuer and Koerts, however, will be doing their utmost to claim this third place; they have been on the podium three times this year and will be keen to add another one to their tally.
Sitting fifth in the championship standings going into this race are Mike Roscher and Anna Burkard. They have been working well throughout the season, but they will have to fight hard to keep their placing as, as Jakob Rutz and Thomas Hofer, currently sixth in the championship, are just three points adrift of the German-Swiss pair. Rutz and Hofer have had an up and down season, as they have had some technical problems in the last half of the season, pushing them down the table from the top four to sixth. They will be hoping to finish the season with a good result, but they too will need to fight hard, as the all Finnish team of Petri Makkula and Harri Asumaineimi is just three points behind. Like Rutz and Hofer, they too have had an up and down season with technical problems but they will be looking to put these behind them now and a good result here in France will do their championship position no harm at all.
Eighth in the championship at the moment, Philippe Gallerne and Julien Chesenau will be looking to put on a good show for the spectators at their home GP. The team have been lacking power all season, but have persevered, and if it were not for two component failures at two races earlier in the year they would have had a good points tally in the championship overall.
As in the last round, Pekka Paivarinta and Timo Karttiala will be entered to race here. They are getting to grips with their all-new machine but were let down by a technical problem in Germany after getting up to third in race two. The team will have worked hard to rectify this problem, and will be hoping that they can get a good result and a finish. Also racing in their home GP will be Sebastien Delannoy and Kevin Rousseau. They raced earlier in the season at Assen, and had a great result, making it on to the rostrum with a third place. Both these two teams are capable of getting a great result, and a podium finish cannot be ruled out.
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