Sunshine and 39,000 people were visitors to England’s south coast and a few miles outside of Winchester for the eighth round of fifteen in the FIM MX2 World Championship. Searle, who recently turned seventeen, not only celebrated his maiden set of Grand Prix silverware but also gave the Kawasaki squad a home event to remember.

The Matterley track itself was a talking point throughout the weekend with many riders commenting that the layout was too fast, too easy or not sufficiently technical, while others quite enjoyed the undulations and climbs within the natural bowl setting. The hard terrain was coated with a thin top soil that threw up a lot of dust and also an uncomfortable amount of ‘roost’.

Searle adapted to the conditions and steered the KX 250F with a wisdom and natural speed that belies his youth. He scored an 8^th position in the first clammy and sunny moto of 35 minutes and 2 laps duration after an interesting duel with team-mate Gareth Swanepoel. However, it was the second race that really grabbed the public’s attention. A decent start saw the Brit running in fourth, which swiftly became third when Billy Mackenzie ran off the track. For a long period Searle deflected Rui Goncalves and Sebastien Pourcel to guard his position while Mackenzie could not make any further progress from 8^th thus placing Searle on the podium courtesy of his better ranking despite being tied on points.

The race went to an exciting and tense finale. A thundering football-esque cheer reverberated around the circuit when Pourcel briefly snatched third but Searle retaliated with less than half a lap to run. A mistake by his French rival gave the teenager the break he needed and the public noisily voiced their approval as he passed the chequered flag.

Exactly one year ago Searle made his Grand Prix debut and scored points at the 2005 edition of the British event. His rate of progress in just over twelve months has been staggering.

Swanepoel could not finish the second moto and may have picked up a light concussion after a run-in with Davide Guarneri led to a heavy crash.

The South African has swapped places with his team-mate in the Championship as Searle has now climbed to tenth and is just seven points away from further promotion.

Elsewhere in the team Ray Rowson – in very much an echo of Searle’s Matchams Park performance in 2005 – not only qualified but took home three excellent points after finishing 18^th in the first moto. Tom Church also made the starting gate but could not post results in the top twenty.

All four riders have little time for recovery as the fifth round of the Maxxis British Championship will take place next weekend at the Desertmartin circuit in Northern Ireland before a trip to Uddevalla and the Swedish Grand Prix in a fortnight.

Tommy Searle:

“I am really happy. Last year I made my debut in the British GP, and in my first full season I have come back here for my first podium. It is a great achievement and I can’t describe how pleased I am. Pourcel came through but I saw a gap right away and went for it. If I hadn’t overtaken him there then it would have been hard before the end. It was good to have all the fans behind me and I could really hear them cheering on that last lap. I will keep plugging away now and race as hard as I can every week. Maybe some more podiums this year could be possible; I also want to move up in the Championship.”

Tom Church:

“The Grand Prix didn’t really go that well. I crashed on the first lap of the first race and bent the bike pretty badly, so that was that. In the second moto I got a pretty good start but could not really live with the pace of those guys. I am still finding my feet with the speed at Grand Prix this year but it is getting better.”

Lisa Church, Team Manager:

“Gareth is OK but he hit his head pretty hard and didn’t know where he was for a while. Hopefully with a bit of rest he should be fine. He has happy with the first race because he came from far behind and passed another two people on the last two laps so he was pleased but is just suffering a bit with his starts.

We are really pleased for Tommy and to do it here was great. Both Gareth and Tommy have been getting stronger and stronger all the time and hopefully this result is the first of many.

www.molsonkawasaki.com

Thanks to Ray Archer for the photos

MX2 Moto1

1 PHILIPPAERTS David ITA KTM 39:22.087, 2 POURCEL Christophe FRA KAWASAKI 39:27.530, 3 MACKENZIE Billy GBR YAMAHA 39:31.547, 4 GUARNERI Davide ITA YAMAHA 39:35.155, 5 GUNDERSEN Kenneth NOR YAMAHA 39:36.981, 6 CAIROLI Antonio ITA YAMAHA 39:39.627, 7 SWANEPOEL Gareth RSA KAWASAKI 39:40.998, 8 SEARLE Tommy GBR KAWASAKI 39:41.793, 18 ROWSON Ray GBR KAWASAKI 40:46.572, 30 CHURCH Tom GBR KAWASAKI 3:28.055

MX2 Moto2

1 CAIROLI Antonio ITA YAMAHA 39:56.266, 2 PHILIPPAERTS David ITA KTM 40:07.499, 3 SEARLE Tommy GBR KAWASAKI 40:09.955, 4 POURCEL Sébastien FRA KAWASAKI 40:10.456, 5 GONCALVES Rui POR KTM 40:23.260, 6 GUNDERSEN Kenneth NOR YAMAHA 40:33.156, 7 BOISSIERE Anthony FRA YAMAHA 40:36.897, 8 MACKENZIE Billy GBR YAMAHA 40:41.383, 9 NUNN Carl  GBR KTM 40:45.656, 10 CHIODI Alessio ITA YAMAHA 40:47.184, 21 CHURCH Tom GBR KAWASAKI 41:38.819, 25 ROWSON Ray GBR KAWASAKI, 30 SWANEPOEL Gareth RSA KAWASAKI 4:28.553

MX2 Overall classification

1 PHILIPPAERTS David ITA KTM 47, 2 CAIROLI Antonio ITA YAMAHA 40, 3 SEARLE Tommy GBR KAWASAKI 33, 4 MACKENZIE Billy GBR YAMAHA 33, 5 GUNDERSEN Kenneth NOR YAMAHA 31, 6 POURCEL Christophe FRA KAWASAKI 31, 7 POURCEL Sébastien FRA KAWASAKI 29, 8 GONCALVES Rui POR KTM 25, 9 NUNN Carl  GBR KTM 22, 10 BOISSIERE Anthony FRA YAMAHA 21, 14 SWANEPOEL Gareth RSA KAWASAKI 14, 23 ROWSON Ray  GBR KAWASAKI 3, 28 CHURCH Tom GBR KAWASAKI 0

MX2 World Championship standings after 8 of 15 rounds

1 POURCEL C. FRA 305, 2 CAIROLI Antonio ITA 271, 3 PHILIPPAERTS D. ITA 257,4 DE REUVER Marc NED 250, 5 RATTRAY Tyla RSA 245, 6 MACKENZIE Billy GBR 201, 7 NUNN Carl GBR 181, 8 GUNDERSEN K. NOR 170, 9 POURCEL S. FRA 169, 10 SEARLE Tommy GBR 162, 12 SWANEPOEL Gareth RSA 148