Cycle News Staff | September 7, 2021
Red Bull KTM celebrated double wins at the Bitchi.com MXGP of Turkey, September 5, the first of two races to be held at the Afyon venue. The second race, round nine of the FIM MXGP Championship, will be held midweek on Wednesday, September 8. At the opener, Jeffrey Herlings and Tom Vialle fired first shots, winning the MXGP and MX2 classes, respectively.
Photos by Ray Archer
Herlings settled into third place in the opening MXGP moto then went on the attack later in the race, passing Kawasaki’s Romain Febvre for second then teammate Jorge Prado for the lead. At that point, it was all Herlings to the finish, with Prado taking second and GasGas’ Pauls Jonass taking third after getting around Febvre, who bobbled through a turn, three laps from the end.
After struggling to find his pace and rhythm and dealing with a bout of arm pump while trying to get around Glenn Coldenhoff deep in the pack in moto one, points leader, Honda’s Tim Gajser, rebounded to win moto two.
Prado ran second for much of the second moto and had to defend the position a few times from his teammates Antonio Cairoli and Herlings. Prado caught a break when Cairoli crashed. The veteran, Cairoli, ran into a stray course marker that had been knocked onto the racecourse by another racer. But the young rider from Spain, Prado, couldn’t quite hold off Herlings, who got around Prado for second place when the Spaniard momentarily lost his rhythm in the ruts late in the race.
Herlings took the checkers in second, approximately five seconds behind Gajser, but it was enough to give the KTM rider the overall victory for the day.
Prado finished another four seconds back in third well ahead of Febvre and Cairoli. Prado was happy with second overall, while Gajser was happy just to get on the podium in third after his first-moto sixth.
Febvre was fourth overall and Cairoli rounded out the top five after a couple of crashes on the day.
“Both starts were off today,” said Herlings, “and with the high altitude here, we changed some things with the bike, but I think maybe we should go in a different direction. The start was pretty bad in the first race but then I managed to pass Glenn, Romain and Jorge and then it went pretty easy. Second race I was around 10th or 12th, it was harder to get around the other guys, the last few laps were sketchy between Jorge and Tony as they were fighting for second position. Then Tony crashed right in front of me and then I managed to sneak past Jorge, but Tim was too far away for me to do anything about it.”
“I had two completely different races,” Gajser said. “The first race I had a solid start, but I got stuck behind Glenn and couldn’t pass him for 10 laps, so I kind of lost the rhythm, got arm pump and finished sixth. I was definitely not happy with it. In the second one, I had a good start and was third and then made quick passes in the middle of the race, made a small gap and controlled the race. Definitely happy with the second race.”
Jonass, third in the first moto, crashed spectacularly in the second moto and did not finish but came out of it in good health.
Gajser extended his championship points lead to 13 over Prado, and the surging Herlings is fifth in the championship, 36 points behind Gajser.
In the MX2 class, Vialle traded moto wins with Frenchman Maxime Renaux (Yamaha), who leads the championship. Vialle topped moto one by approximately six seconds ahead of KTM rider Mattia Guadagnini, who was followed across the finish line by Australian Jed Beaton (Husqvarna), Renaux and Austrian Rene Hofer (KTM).
Renaux came back on fire in moto two. The Yamaha rider got out in front early and knocked out a wire-to-wire win over Vialle, who did, however, keep an eye on the Frenchman the whole way. In fact, Vialle was pressuring Renaux when Vialle momentarily washed out with a lap to go.
Beaton out-dueled Guadagnini for third.
The 1-2 gave Vialle the overall win, with Renaux taking second with a 4-1.
Beaton rounded out the podium with a 3-3.
In the championship, Renaux still enjoys a comfortable lead. He extended it to 37 points over Guadagnini. Jago Geerts, of Belgium, sixth overall on the day, is third, 15 points behind Guadagnini. Vialle, who missed multiple rounds earlier in the season with an injury, is 10th in the championship. CN
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