“It’ll be a tough race,” Gilles Stafler had warned after Friday’s qualifying, even though Kawasaki SRC had picked up pole thanks to consistent performance by its team: Gregory Leblanc, Matthieu Lagrive and Fabien Foret. At the race start Saturday morning, Gregory Leblanc got a fantastic holeshot and left all his rivals behind, but had a shaky end to his stint because of a tyre choice unsuited to the high track temperature. The Kawasaki SRC riders tried their utmost to catch up in the course of the following stints, but their efforts were stymied when the bike ran out of fuel.
So they had to start from scratch. Stafler’s entire team gave the fight all they had. But the next alert was fatal. Says Stafler:
“When Gregory was doing the 27th lap of his stint the engine started overheating, and it blew up a couple of laps on. As for the fuel breakdown, it was down to totally abnormal consumption – which had been constant in practice. We had capacity for 34-laps stints and dropped to 32 laps to be on the safe side, but even so Gregory ran out of fuel.”
Following its great performance at Le Mans, Team Kawasaki SRC is still very much in the running for the FIM EWC championship title, with 60 points in second place.
The best Kawasaki at the finish of the 12 Horas de Portimão was the Tati Team Beaujolais Racing bike with Julien Enjolras, Dylan Buisson and Hugo Clere in the saddle. The Kawasaki #4, entered in the Superstock class, finished 6th, eight laps from the leader.
 
The next race on the FIM EWC calendar is the Suzuka 8 Hours on 31 July.