Australia’s Damian Cudlin suffered another set back in his 2007 World Endurance Campaign with an engine failure at Suzuka in Japan on the weekend.

Teamed alongside Igor Jerman and fellow Aussie Steve Martin for the event, Cudlin showed great promise in practice and qualifying, being consistently fastest of the YART line up in race conditions, only to be relegated down the order in the race when an oil cooler broke on his Yamaha R1.

After climbing to 4^th in the SBK class and 15^th outright in the first 3 hours of racing, Cudlin and the YART squad looked set for a solid result until Martin returned to the pits early with an overheating engine. After changing to Jerman, the team was forced to pit again 2 laps later to change the broken oil cooler and radiator, losing 25 minutes in the process.

“I don’t know what to say.” said a disappointed Cudlin. “I was riding really well on the weekend, our team had good speed and a strong result was certainly on the cards, but we suffered from the same bad luck we’ve had all season when the bike broke down. It’s a real shame as our championship hopes are pretty well over now.”

The team soldiered on to the finish well down the order, 12^th in SBK and 35^th outright. They now lie 5^th in the World Championship standings.

“It’s been a tough year even though we’ve consistently been one of the fastest teams on the track. The main thing is that the results aren’t coming because we are too slow, we’ve just been unlucky. We’ve got to put it behind us now and move on to Oschersleben with a fresh plan of attack. I still think we can still win a race this year and with nothing to lose we’ll be going all out at Osch.” Cudlin warned.

The next round of the World Endurance Championship will be held at Oschersleben in Germany on the 11/12^th of August.