Cycle News Staff | May 30, 2016
After a relatively unsuccessful showing in front of his “home” crowd in Italy, Slovenian rookie Tim Gajser was back to his best at the hard pack Talavera de la Reina circuit in Spain, winning both races in convincing style and making passes that others just couldn’t seem to make happen. While there were plenty of ruts, there only seemed to be one good line and once inside the top 10, getting past any other rider was proving extremely difficult. Not for the red-plate holder Gajser though as his first couple of laps in both races saw him make move after move to work his way into the lead, passing Max Nagl both times on his way to maximum points. The German rider tried his best and with this 2-2 performance he isn’t completely out of the title hunt and it did see him make up good ground on both Antonio Cairoli and Romain Febvre.
In fact it was these two riders who provided the biggest controversy of the weekend in the MXGP Qualifying race when Cairoli ran over a grounded Febvre, severely damaging the reigning champ’s arm. Despite in a lot of pain, the Febvre was able to gut out 9-4 results, which keeps Gajser just about within sight. For the Italian, after Trentino where he won, this was a major step backwards as he actually scored two less points than his injured rival, only good enough for seventh overall and dropping him to 47 points back.
On the last step of the podium was Gautier Paulin and it was good to see the Honda rider back where he belongs. An injury-hit campaign has ruled out any championship hopes but he still wants to prove he’s one of the best in the world and this performance shows he is back headed in the right direction. His 4-3 scores owed much to good starts on a track that was tricky to pass on, but it was still good for his fans to see him up there.
It was just another day at the office in the MX2 class for Jeffrey Herlings, sweeping both motos quite comfortably on a track that some predicted he might have problems beating the resurgent Dylan Ferrandis on. That certainly wasn’t the case though as he swept past the Frenchman on his way to the first moto victory by over 20 seconds. In the second race he had to pass a few more guys, with another Frenchman Benoit Paturel his last victim before winning by seven seconds. For Paturel, his 4-2 results were good enough for second place on the podium with Herlings’ teammate Pauls Jonass’ pair of thirds seeing him round out the top three.
In the championship, a first-lap crash by Jeremy Seewer in race one meant that he could only manage 11th place, before improved with a fourth in race two. This stretches out Herlings’ championship lead to 115 points over the Swiss rider and surely it is just a matter of time before he gets crowned champ (although we’ve said that before).
A last minute switch and a trans-Atlantic flight saw Dakota Alix make his World Championship debut, riding on the iFLy JK Racing Yamaha team. After a reasonably successful SX season where he was known for his holeshots (aboard a KTM) it was a bit of a shock to see him here riding blue but he acquitted himself admirably, going 28-16 in the first of his scheduled four GPs.
In the EMX250 series, Darian Sanayei had a good chance to move into second in the championship, but could only go 13-4 in the two races. Crashes in both motos cost him valuable points and with championship leader Thomas Kjer Olsen going 1-1, the title looks out of reach for the young American. However, with Australian Hunter Lawrence struggling with consistency, second place is definitely up for grabs.
MX2 Class
- Jeffrey Herlings (1-1)
- Benoit Paturel (4-2)
- Pauls Jonass (3-3)
- Dylan Ferrandis (2-5)
- Aleksandr Tonkov (6-6)
MXGP Class
- Tim Gajser (1-1)
- Max Nagl (2-2)
- Gautier Paulin (4-3)
- Clement Desalle (3-6)
- Evgeny Bobryshev (6-5)
– David Bulerm
MXGP and MX2 highlights from Spain
The video below shows the incident that injured defending MXGP champ Romain Febvre.