Seventh win, but Birchall brothers miss out on world sidecar title

But sadly it was not enough to clinch the title which went to Pekka Paivarinta and Adolf Hanni who, by taking third place in the final round at Le Mans, secured the crown.

Ben and Tom, supported by Mitchells of Mansfield, had once again set pole position and shot away to an unassailable lead. And as the race unfolded they pulled away to cross the finish line after 18 gruelling laps some 14.9 seconds ahead of Steinhausen/Hawes, who in turn were six seconds ahead of the new world champions.

After the race Ben said: “It was really great to take the win, this was our seventh in a row and secures our second place in the world championship.

“The whole team is delighted and we have to thank our loyal sponsors for their continued support, especially Mitchells of Mansfield and of course Louis Christen who got the machine up and running so quickly after our mishap at Donington.

“Without their input we could not have achieved this.

“We really like the Le Mans circuit and are both very happy to have finally won here. The LCR Suzuki has proved to be such an awesome machine and is a delight to ride.”

He added: “After a bad start to the season we realised that all we could do was to go out and win every race if we were to become world champions , and we did exactly that. But Paivarinta and Hanni were so consistent and finished in second place to us in the majority of the races and we just could not overhaul them.”

The Birchall brothers will this weekend contest the penultimate round of the Eastern Airways British F1 championship, which is part of the support package within the British Superbike series at Silverstone, after which they will spend the winter months preparing the LCR Suzuki for an assault on the 2014 world championship.