BELGIAN rider, Stphane Mertens, was the first rider to taste victory at the opening round of BMW's brand new one-make racing series the 2005 BMW Motorrad PowerCup held at Le Mans in France last Sunday. In front of 75,000 fans, a thunderous grid of BMW's new 175 bhp K1200 R race machines lined-up at the legendary 4.2 km Bugatti circuit.

Perfect weather conditions with sunny skies and a dry track for the start of the seven-race series that will support the MotoGP World Championship throughout Europe. At the start of the race, the patriotic French crowd only had eyes for hometown hero Gwen Giabbiani, but his dreams of a podium finish on home turf ended in the gravel trap at the end of the very first lap.

Last year's BoxerCup series victor Thomas Hinterreiter (Austria) made a bad start and saw his championship rivals Markus Barth (Germany) and Sergio Fuertes (Spain) disappear off into the distance, closely followed by Stphane Mertens, with Roberto Panichi (Italy) in fourth. As the 17-lap race progressed, Hinterreiter clawed his way through the pack and finally joined the front-runners. In fact, the top seven riders were so evenly matched, there were just 1.2 seconds between them as they approached the final stages of the race.

With just two laps remaining, Barth and Mertens endured a tough battle for the lead at speeds of up to 155 mph, showing just how fast BMW's K1200 R is on the track. However, on the very last lap, Barth ran out of fuel and had to retire from the race leaving Mertens to take the glory just 0.135 seconds ahead of Hinterreiter. Roberto Panichi took the remaining podium spot while Sbastien Legrelle finished in fourth position.

"After my crash yesterday, this is the perfect result for me, said Belgium's Stphane Mertens." I am still getting to grips with the new bike and had planned to take it easy, but the pace was so quick! A few riders came past me and I really had to concentrate to stay with them. However, I'm delighted to have won this inaugural PowerCup race.

BMW Motorrad PowerCup Ambassador, Randy Mamola summed up the opening round of this exciting new series: "We have had a perfect start for the next step of BMW Motorrad's racing programme. I thought the BoxerCup series was exciting but with such a close finish for the top six competitors here at Le Mans, this new PowerCup championship looks set to be full of even more nail biting races than we have seen in the past."

The second round of the BMW Motorrad PowerCup will take place on Saturday 4 June in Mugello, Italy. BMW also continues in its role as official car supplier to the MotoGP World Championship. The German company will supply the recently launched M6 and the all-new M5 to the series. Both market-leading cars feature the awe inspiring 507 bhp V10 engine. The rest of the MotoGP BMW fleet includes a 330i Touring as the medical car; a 750i for the race director; a 545i Touring for the safety officer, and a X5 4.4i for the steward.

In addition, lap times from all MotoGP qualifying sessions go towards the BMW Best Qualifier Award. This end of series BMW award accumulates competitors' times from the 17-race grid times throughout the 2005 season. The prize for the lowest cumulative time (taken over the season) is a prestigious new BMW M5. Only after the last qualifying session of the year at Valencia in November will the winner of the BMW Best Qualifier Award 2005 - and the breathtaking M5 - be decided. Last year, Valentino Rossi was the lucky recipient of a BMW 645Ci worth 80,000 euros.