Bobryshev, Herlings Top Qatar MXGP Qualifying
Cycle News Staff | February 26, 2016
The 2016 FIM Motocross World Championship gets underway this weekend in Qatar, but the activities have already started. Practicing and qualifying are already completed, and the two riders getting off to the best starts are HRC Honda’s Evgeny Bobryshev in the MXGP (450) class and Red Bull KTM’s Jeffrey Herlings in the MX2 class.
Pretty much as expected, Herlings won the MX2 qualifying race by leading from start to finish, maintaining about a two-second advantage over Kawasaki’s Dylan Ferrandis of France. Ferrandis actually posted the quickest lap time of the race but Herlings seemed to control the race from start to finish. The two riders finished well ahead of the next-best rider, Pauls Jonass of Latvia. The KTM rider crossed the finish line approximately 30 seconds behind Ferrandis. Fourth went to Swiss rider Jeremy Seewer (Suzuki), while fifth went to Frenchman Benoit Paturel (Yamaha).
Bobryshev also led it from start to finish in the MXGP qualifying race, which also determines starting picks for the GP. Slovenia’s Tim Gajser, the 2015 MX2 World Champion who is making his debut in the MXGP class, was impressive, as the HRC Honda rider claimed second, taking the checkered flag less than two seconds behind Bobryshev and five seconds ahead of defending MXGP World Champion Romain Febvre on the factory-backed Yamaha. He posted the quickest lap time of the race.
“I’m really happy with today,” Bobryshev said. “We’ve been working really hard these last weeks on starts, and today the start was good. In the race I felt a little tight on the bike because I haven’t ridden for the last five days so I was getting a little bit of arm pump, and I made a few mistakes and lost some seconds to Gajser. I had good speed though and I could control the race until the end so I’m really happy – it’s just qualifying but it’s a good way to start the season.”
Former World Champion Antonio Cairoli took fourth despite riding with nerve damage to his neck that he suffered during the pre-season racing. The Netherlands’ Glenn Coldenhoff rounded out the top five.
The injured Clement Desalle (Kawasaki) completed just one lap, which was just enough to get him into tomorrow’s GP. The Belgian star broke his arm in a race a couple of weeks ago.