Cycle News Staff | March 28, 2023
Jeffrey Herlings found himself back on the top step of the MXGP podium at round two of the FIM Motocross World Championship in Sardinia, Italy, March 25-26.
The Red Bull KTM rider used two second-place finishes to seal the deal on his 100th Grand Prix overall victory. In the MX2 division, Jago Geerts claimed the overall win.
In MXGP race one, GasGas’s Jorge Prado found himself at the front of the field early on. The Spaniard simply rode away from the rest of the competition. He bested the deep sand to take the opening victory.
Herlings used his sand specialty to claw through the field and gained positions as other riders fell from mistakes. He took second while fellow Dutchman Calvin Vlaanderen rounded out the podium.
Race two saw more battles as Glenn Coldenhoff put himself out front early on. Behind him, Romain Febvre rebounded from a race-one crash and got off to a much better start in podium territory.
Herlings, on the other hand, suffered his first-lap troubles and was ninth early in the race. The KTM rider caught fire near the halfway mark and began checking names off the list as he moved toward the podium. The final few laps gave fans an intense battle among Febvre, Herlings and Maxime Renaux, as the three duked it out for the final spots on the box. Herlings overtook both riders late in the moto and used back-to-back second places to take the overall win.
Coldenhoff (pictured below) took the moto victory and second overall, while Renaux slipped past Febvre for third.
Prado (pictured below) finished sixth in race two but still took third in the overall classification. He continues to lead the overall points over Herlings and Renaux.
It was a tough weekend for round-one winner Ruben Fernandez. The sole Honda HRC rider fell and DNF race one and fell again in race two to finish 16th overall.
Jago Geerts got the early advantage in the MX2 division, but mistakes dropped him out of the lead. He found himself battling with Simon Laengenfelder and Kay de Wolf, as the three jockeyed for the top spot. Geerts made his way back to the front but stalled the Yamaha and handed the lead back to De Wolf. De Wolf, another Dutch sand expert, went on to take the opening victory over Geerts and Laengenfelder.
Geerts and De Wolf both battled early on again in MX2 race two. The two stayed close for the opening stages, but Geerts minimized his mistakes this time and edged De Wolf for the race win and overall victory. De Wolf’s 1-2 dropped him to second.
Yamaha’s Thibault Benistant finished third in race two and nabbed the final spot on the overall podium.
Geerts leads the points in MX2 over De Wolf and Benistant. CN
MXGP
- Jeffery Herlings (KTM) 2-2
- Glenn Coldenhoff (Yam) 5-1
- Jorge Prado (GG) 1-6
- Maxime Renaux (Yam) 4-3
- Calvin Vlaanderen (Yam) 3-5
MX2
- Jago Geerts (Yam) 2-1
- Kay De Wolf (Hus) 1-2
- Thibault Benistant (Yam) 4-3
- Simon Laengenfelder (GG) 3-7
- Lucas Coenen (Hus) 6-4
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