The MXGP season was off to Germany on Sunday after a tense weekend in France. Jeremy Seewer, who led a 450 rider boycott of the qualifying race, ended up winning the day afterward with a strong run. Tim Gajser meanwhile continued to struggle and hasn’t won a ‘GP in over a month. Despite this, the 243 still maintains a big lead in the points. Could he turn it around at Teutschenthal, where he’s won in the last two trips there?
Be sure to catch up on all of our Motocross coverage.
League Meeting
After what went down last weekend, the FIM and some select MXGP riders held a closed-door meeting for around an hour in a half. According to Lewis Phillips, one rider bailed early because “it was going in circles” but one thing came out of it. There will be two riders selected to be on a safety commission as it relates to track prep and whatnot. Also according to Phillips, the two riders this weekend were Mitch Evans and Kay De Wolf. When MXGP heads over to Indonesia, it will be Gajser and Tom Vialle.
Don’t Call it a Comeback
It has been a good minute since we last saw Romain Febvre on a bike. After suffering a significant leg injury at Paris Supercross, on top of a setback down the road, the former World Champion is officially back. This is gigantic for the Kawasaki KRT squad, which has just had Ben Watson for the bulk of this year.
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Renaux Injury
With qualifying races being a hot topic last weekend, that continued again this weekend, and not in a good way. Maxime Renaux, who was second in the MXGP class points as a rookie, suffered a major injury on Saturday. He hit a bad rut on the leadup to the finish line jump and had to bail in mid-air, landing on his back on the downside. We would find out in the A.M. hours in the states, that Renaux suffered fractures in four of the vertebrae in his back. Safe to say the rookie will not be on the bike for a while. Additionally, at what point are these qualifying races going to get scrapped? Seeing a top-level rider go down in a race for nothing more than gate picks is insane.
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MX2 Class Recap
Moto 1
Vialle ripped off another holeshot to kick off Sunday, with Kay De Wolf getting left in the dust after a fall in turn one. The top five after lap one more or less ran the show here. behind Vialle were the Monster Energy Yamaha duo of Thibault Benistant and Jago Geerts, who ended up swapping positions midway with Geerts taking home second. Behind them were Mikkel Haarup and Jan Pancar, who more or less did the same as the Yamaha duo, with Haarup coming out on top. For Vialle, he cruised to what was his 10th Moto win of the season.
Moto 2
Vialle again nabbed a holeshot, leading Benistant and Geerts into the opening few corners. Things would not go well for the points leader this time around, however. After Benistant got by him to officially lead the first four laps, Vialle suffered a bike failure and was out of the running not even a third of the way in. This was absolutely massive, given that Geerts was just 14 points back entering this Moto, and the Frenchman would not score any points. Very rare to see something like this, especially a KTM bike.
With Vialle out of the running, things opened up as wide as possible for Monster Energy Yamaha. Benistant was on rails this Moto, securing the fastest lap by nearly seven-tenths of a second over his Belgian teammate Geerts. Safe to say he cruised to the Moto win here, betting the No. 93 by over 10 seconds. Furthermore, this was officially Benistant’s first career Grand Prix win as well. Geerts does not come home empty-handed himself. As a result of the Vialle Moto 2 DNF, he retakes the points lead by 18 points as the second half of the season kicks in.
MX2 Class Top 10 Results
1st No. 189 Thibault Benistant 3-1
2nd No. 93 Jago Geerts 2-2
3rd No. 11 Mikkel Haarup 4-3
4th No. 24 Kevin Horgmo 6-5
5th No. 516 Simon Laengenfelder 9-4
6th No. 253 Jan Pancar 5-7
7th No. 80 Andrea Adamo 7-6
8th No. 38 Stephen Rubini 8-8
9th No. 28 Tom Vialle 1-DNF
10th No. 517 Isak Gifting 10-9
MXGP Class Recap
Moto 1
Gajser picked up the first premier class holeshot of the day, outrunning Pauls Jonass and a sporty Febvre out of turn one. Without any real race time in over six months, the No. 3 looked impressive in this Moto. After starting out in third, he only lost one spot the entire race, that being to Seewer in the opening few laps. Jorge Prado, who started in sixth this Moto, had a solid charge into a near podium spot, but threw it away with under five laps remaining, putting him in seventh. Gajser, by all accounts, seems to be back on the right track, as he dominated this one for Moto win No. 11 this season.
Moto 2
This go around it was Seewer getting the holeshot over Prado and Gajser. He had to hold off the pair in the opening half dozen corners, but once he did so, Seewer left the field in short order. In short, there was little to no position movement in this Moto after the first few laps. Calvin Vlaanderen got by Ruben Fernandez on lap two, while Glenn Coldenhoff got by Henry Jacobi for 9th around midway.
Seewer, who has been on a roll as of late, has a 50-percent winning clip in the last two weeks. Gajser meanwhile finds the top step of the podium for the first time in a month. Additionally, due to the Renaux injury, his points lead is now over 100 points with eight rounds left. To put it bluntly, he could miss two straight rounds and still be safe. Not a bad spot to be in, especially after a rough few outings beforehand.
MXGP Class Top 10 Results
1st No. 243 Tim Gajser 1-2
2nd No. 91 Jeremy Seewer 3-1
3rd No. 61 Jorge Prado 7-3
4th No. 70 Ruben Fernandez 5-5
5th No. 3 Romain Febvre 4-7
6th No. 41 Pauls Jonass 2-13
7th No. 43 Mitch Evans 8-3
8th No. 10 Calvin Vlaanderen 12-4
9th No. 259 Glenn Coldenhoff 10-8
10th No. 29 Henri Jacobi 9-11
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