BMW Boxer Cup 2003

Swiss rider Andy Hofmann secured the BMW Motorrad BoxerCup 2003 grand prize - a brand new BMW M3 car worth £39,000 for being the overall winner of the nine-round BMW series. Britain's young contestants, Richard Cooper and Barry Burrell were satisfied with their championship results, Richard finished sixth and Barry eleventh.

At the final round at Brno in the Czech Republic, Richard qualified on the third row of the grid in tenth position. Then on race day he had a good start and managed to finish seventh.

"In qualifying, I just couldn't get enough clear track. I kept getting caught up among other riders," said the 21-year-old from Nottingham. "The qualifying times were really close. I secured a lap time of 2m 17.8 seconds. If I had managed a time of 2m 17.2 seconds, I would have been on the front row.

"In the race, I got a really good start and I was fifth coming out of the first corner. I managed to hold the position for a couple of laps, but then I started to struggle and a couple of riders got past me. I drifted back to 11th position, but then I gained some momentum. I managed to fight back and pass some more riders. I got behind Sebastien Legrelle (Belgium) who was running in sixth position. I was right on his tail and we had a really good battle. I finished behind him in the race, but on the timesheets he was 10th or 11th, so he must have had a 10-second penalty.

"I'm happy with my result today and my position in the championship," said the winner of the second round of the series at Oulton Park. "I think that the championship has been a lot harder this year and the competition has been much tougher. For the UK team, we have bettered our result from last year. I have finished sixth in the series for the past two years now. And the team has two riders in the top eleven."

Overall the BMW Motorrad Great Britain team has had a year of ups and downs. Richard Cooper started the season on a high by securing pole position at Daytona in the USA, but then crashed on the first lap of the race.

This was followed by a two-month break before the second round at Oulton Park in the UK, where in tricky wet/dry weather conditions he had a sensational win in front of his home crowd. From then on his season has featured mixed results, but nonetheless he finished a creditable sixth place in the hard fought championship. 2003 is Barry Burrell's debut year in the international BoxerCup series and he has impressively adapted to the unique riding style required for racing the big-bore BMW Boxer twins. Barry's best result was a fifth place finish at Le Mans in France and has secured eleventh position in the championship.

Matt Layt started the year as BMW Motorrad Great Britain's third rider, but he left the team halfway through the season to race in a different category. 17-year-old Tony Waistnage joined the team as Matt's replacement and over the four rounds that he competed his best result was seventh at Assen in the Netherlands.

Results table;