Todd Ellis claims two podiums in Croatia

North Kelsey's Todd Ellis and French passenger Emmanuelle Clement secured two podium finishes in the Croatian round of the FIM World Sidecar championship - when they took a second and third place in the two races at Grobnik on the Santander Salt LCR Yamaha last week.

Despite the fact that this was another new circuit for Ellis/Clement to learn, in hot and sunny conditions the pair completed their qualifying in third place and lined up alongside pole sitters Schlosser/Fries and Reeves/Rousseau for the start of the first race on Saturday.

As the lights went out it was Schlosser /Fries who got the hole shot ahead of Ellis/Clement with Streuer/Remme taking up third place ahead of Reeves/Rousseau.

But it wasn’t long before Reeves passed both Streuer and Ellis to chase after the leaders, Kershaw/Charlwood joined the action and all five teams pulled away from the pursuing pack and circulated in close formation until, with four laps remaining, Reeves retired to the pits with an electrical problem.

That left Schlosser/Fries in the lead with Ellis/Clement visibly gaining ground and setting the fastest lap of the race (1m 31.501s) in their effort to catch the leaders but it was not to be for the Anglo/French team who had to be content with second place at the flag, just a fraction of a second adrift. Kershaw/Charlwood came home some five seconds later in third place.

Once again hot sunny weather conditions greeted the riders for the second 18 lap race on Sunday and Schlosser/Fries again took the lead with Ellis/Clement and Reeves/Rousseau right on their tail.

This time the three leading outfits pulled well clear of the pack and entered into a close battle for position throughout the race.

The lead was exchanged throughout the remaining laps and on the penultimate lap Reeves managed to establish a slender lead from Ellis with Schlosser just a few yards behind them.

On the final lap Schlosser fought his way back into second place and the three outfits crossed the finish line separated by just a tenth of second. Reeves/Rousseau were awarded second place with Ellis/Clement a mere four hundredths of a second back in third place.

Clement commented: “That was an exciting race where any of the three outfits could have taken the win.

"A big thank you to my Santander Salt team, sponsors, family, all of you who support us and obviously Todd who is just amazing, an extraordinary rider to me.”

The next round is at Oschersleben in Germany on October 1.