Guy Bertin, the 57-year-old Frenchman, stretched his lead in the ICGP 350cc championship to 19 points with victory in both races in the fourth round of the 2012 series at Oschersleben, Germany at the weekend.

Report by Chris Carter

The only man who could stay with the super-quick pace of Bertin’s ex- Toni Mang Kawasaki KR was Scotsman Ian Simpson.

Simpson, the 42-year-old former British Supersport 600 champion, riding the Bill Simpson Racing Yamaha TZ, qualified on pole position and led both 12-lap championship races from the start. Each time, though, Bertin was able to use the superior pace of his Kawasaki, taking the lead on lap six and going on to victory. He won race one by just over a second and then headed home Simpson by more than six seconds in race two to sample again the winner’s Champagne Dautel Cadot.

Ives Glauser (Yamaha TZ), the 32-year-old Swiss racer, making his second appearance of the season in the championship, was second fastest in qualifying, but could not match the pace of Bertin and Simpson and finished third overall and in the 350 class, in both races. Glauser was less than three seconds adrift of Simpson in that first outing, but he was almost 25 seconds down on the Scotsman in race two. Because he is an unregistered competitor in the series Glauser did not score points in the championship, so Britain’s Simon Densham (Yamaha TZ), seventh overall over the line and fourth in the 350 class picked up points for third place in race one.

Things did not go so well for the 44-year-old British racer in race two, though. Lying sixth in the class Denham had a big slide on the fourth lap. He saved it on his knee, but the incident put him off and he slowed to hung on to sixth place. Those points help Denham tighten his grip on third place in the 350 standings.

Another British racer, 32-year-old Ant Hart, was lying fifth overall on the Arnie Fletcher-built Formula Two Yamaha TZ, in race one on the Saturday, when a broken exhaust spring caused the silencer to fall out of the cylinder. That, plus a faulty gearbox, forced him to retire. It looked as though his meeting was over, but British sponsor Lew Batty, who backs Glauser, stepped in with the loan of an engine for Sunday’s race. There were no problems this time and Hart was fourth over the line, picking up third place points. Those lifted Hart from eighth in the standings to fifth.

Daniel Levieux (Harris Yamaha TZ), the 63-year-old Frenchman, is up to fourth in the 350cc championship after two top-ten finishes. He was ninth in race one, less than half a second behind Britain’s Ron Fyson (Yamaha TZ 350) and then eighth in the class on the Sunday, just over a second ahead of Scotsman Robert Burns (BSR Yamaha TZ 350), the 56-year-old Scottish business man, who is not only an enthusiastic competitor in the series, but also a major sponsor.

Bernard Fau (Morena), the 59-year-old French former Grand Prix racer, had a good meeting, too. He was sixth home in race one , just four fifths of a second behind the German, Ralf Reichelt (Yamaha TZ) and fifth in race two to follow up his good rides in the previous round at Brands Hatch. Those results hoisted him up into sixth in the points’ table. Britain’s Peter Howarth (Yamaha 350) was out of luck. The 60-year-old failed to score any points for the second meeting in succession. He was forced out of the first race, on the penultimate lap, after running seventh overall, early on, when the sparking plug came out of the cylinder head.

podium 350

Then in race two he was forced to stop with a broken gearbox on lap four, when tenth overall. Franz Patrick Dorfner, the 37-year-old Austrian motorcycle dealer, tightened his grip on the ICGP 250 class with two more victories to take his tally of wins to six wins from seven starts.

Dorfner, back on the Nico Bakker Rotax instead of the Yamaha he rode at Brands Hatch, was not just the best 250, he made a lot of the 350s look silly. He was fourth over in race one, after running second to Bertin on the opening lap and then fifth across the line in race two. Yves Hecq (Armstrong), the 51-year-old Belgian, a 250cc class winner in the opening round at Catalunya, chased Dorfner home in both races. He was over 11 seconds down on Dorfner in the first and over six seconds back in race two.

Podium 250

Eric Saul (Chevallier Yamaha), the 58-year-old Frenchman who organised this International Classic Grand Prix series, had to race through from the back of the pack to third place in race one after his machine had jumped out of first gear at the start. Andre Gouin (Yamaha TZ), was only sixth in the opener, but the 56- year-old Frenchman grabbed third place in the class in Sunday’s race, beating the German, Stefan Tennstadt (Bakker Rotax) by less than half a second.

Saul’s bike suffered the same fault at the start of race two, but this time he could climb to fifth. Dorfner now holds a 82 points lead over Gouin in the championship. Austrian Werner Reuberger, who had a dnf and a sixth is third, 107 behind Dorner.

Round five of the six meeting series is at Le Mans, France on September 26-30.

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