| June 5, 2016
With the latest round of the 2016 FIM World Motocross Championship in Saint Jean D’Angely, France, June, 5, the MXGP class just keeps getting better and better, and while its now looking tough for Antonio Cairoli to win his ninth world title, the battle between Romain Febvre and Tim Gajser is making awesome viewing.
In the first race, Gajser swiftly moved into third behind Cairoli and Febvre, and we had all the makings of a classic race. Unfortunately the eight-times champ doesn’t seem to be able to match the raw speed of his young challengers and soon Gajser made a move, before setting his sights on Febvre. It wasn’t long before Febvre fell by the wayside but rather than crumble, this seemed to inspire the Yamaha rider into action and he began tracking what the Honda rookie was doing. As time ran out, it was down to the last corner of the last lap as Febvre dived up the inside. All he needed was a bit of traction and the win was his, however his back spun out and he finished second by 0.6 seconds.
Race two was almost a reverse of the first as it was Gajser who got the early lead, with Febvre slipping in behind him. It was disaster for Cairoli though as he ended up at the bottom of the first turn pile-up, and could only come back to seventh. Meanwhile up front it was Febvre who made a move on Gajser, again, causing the locals to go into raptures. However just as Febvre stalked Gajser, now it was Gajser’s turn, but unlike race one, he was never really able to mount a serious challenge and eventually allowed Febvre to cruise to an important win. Honda’s Evgeny Bobryshev didn’t have the most exciting of races, finishing third in the moto and overall, with Cairoli fourth overall, dropping 13 more points in the title race.
It’s getting a little bit boring writing “Jeffrey Herlings wins in…” each week but while the message was the same again in France, he certainly made it exciting with two performances that had the crowd on the edge of their seats. In both motos he had poor starts, which allowed Jeremy Seewer and Frenchman Benoit Paturel a chance to run and hide; however, slowly but surely the “Bullit” tracked them down. The first race he left it very late, quieting the crowd with just a couple of laps remaining, after a blistering lap that saw him pass Paturel for lead despite starting it six seconds behind.
Race two was much of the same, except joining them was Max Anstie (who was lapped in race one). Seewer led from the get-go, with Anstie and Paturel in tow and Herlings way down the field. As Paturel tried to pass Anstie, it was Anstie who ended up passing Seewer for the lead, with Paturel following him through. Paturel did actually briefly lead but it wasn’t long before Herlings carved his way to the front. There was a brief moment of dismay for the home crowd as Paturel dropped a couple of spots, but he quickly made them back and eventually finished in third place, for second on the podium. Seewer joined him, but the plaudits definitely deserve to go to Herlings who put in two great rides to maintain his 100% overall victories tally in 2016.
After slowly working his way up the championship rankings in recent rounds with steady and consistent performances, Darian Sanayei upped his game at what is a “home” GP for his Bud Racing team. He went 1-1 on a track that’s a couple of hours away from where he’s based in France, holding off EMX250 championship leader Thomas Kjer Olsen in both motos for a well-deserved overall. This is the first time the Star-Spangled Banner has played at the MXGPs since Ryan Villopoto won in Thailand last year and with it, has moved Sanayei comfortably into second place, 63 points behind Kjer Olsen with four rounds left.
RESULTS
MXGP Class
- Romain Febvre (2-1)
- Tim Gajser (1-2)
- Evgeny Bobryshev (4-3)
- Antonio Cairoli (3-7)
- Clement Desalle (8-4)
MX2 Class
- Jeffrey Herlings (1-1)
- Benoit Paturel (2-3)
- Jeremy Seewer (3-4)
- Pauls Jonass (5-5)
- Dylan Ferrandis (6-7)
– DAVID BULMER