Antonio Cairoli Wins MXGP of Great Britain

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After a year off the schedule, the Matterlay Basin circuit in Winchester, England returned to the FIM World Motocross Championship. The MX2 Class would be hit with a major pre-event injury that has now put a major surprise in the points lead. As well as Tim Gasjer putting on a superb charge in MXGP Moto 2, would ultimately not result in an Overall GP Win. Losing out to one of Motocross’s all-time greats in Antonio Cairoli. Recap of this year’s MXGP of Great Britain right here.

MX2 Recap

Moto 1

The day’s big story in the MX2 Class would come in the early hours of the day. Being that defending champion and point leader Tom Vialle would miss the second event of the season. This due to a practice accident during the week where he injured his right hand via Red Bull KTM. Vialle plans to be good for round three next weekend in the first of three rounds in Italy. But with the clear-cut title favorite out of the picture, a slew of riders gained a chance to vault themselves into title contention on Sunday.

Maxime Renaux out of the Monster Energy Wilvo Yamaha camp would start the day holeshot in Moto 1. The position the Frenchman would hold for the entire Moto. Behind him, it would be a rough Moto for Vialle’s running mate Rene Hoffer, finishing a lap down after he stalled his bike around ten minutes in. Australian Husqvarna rider Jed Beaton would not fare much better. He ended up wrecking coming down a high-speed downhill section, which led to him finishing more than a few laps down.  Coming to the finish behind Renaux, Ruben Fernandez would make a bold pass on Mathys Boisrame of F&H Kawasaki to take second.

Moto 2

Red Bull KTM’s Mattia Gadagnini would serve as the surprise of MX2 Moto 2. The Italian, who had only run six MX2 events in his career, would just miss out on holeshot honors. But on the plus side, he would quickly take the lead with his teammate Hoffer in tow behind him. Around the halfway mark, Boisrame would tip over, running second, which ultimately cost him an overall podium effort in the process. Fernandez meanwhile was in the process of rallying from an early race tip over and found himself in a position to podium for the second event in a row. The Boisrame accident would be the break that he needed, as Fernandez ended up third overall on the day.

Gadagnini all the meanwhile would pick up his first career Moto win, securing a 4-1 day for second overall. Then the overall would go to Renaux with a 1-2. Despite an excellent day for Renaux, it would be Fernandez walking out of Great Britain with the MX2 points lead. In his three seasons in the class, he has points finishes of 40th, 24th, and 9th. Now in year four, the Honda rider holds the red plate two rounds in. Despite missing Sunday’s action, Vialle sits only 30 points back of Fernandez, and with over a dozen rounds remaining, he has plenty of time to make that gap up.

Top 10 Overall in MX2

MXGP

Moto 1

Jorge Prado would nab his second holeshot of the season in Moto 1 over Jeremy Sewer and Cairoli. Just a few corners later Cairoli would take the lead from his Spanish protege, and then cruised on to a seven-second win. Jeffery Herlings was able to hold off a very late-race charge from Gajser to secure the one-two-three for Red Bull KTM behind them. Other happenings included a phenomenal battle between GasGas’s Pauls Jonass, and Monster Yamaha’s Sewer and Glenn Coldenhoff in the final third of the race. Coldenhoff was able to keep the former MX2 Champion at bay to secure a fifth-place moto result. The top running countryman of this opening moto would be Ben Watson of Monster Yamaha, finishing in 11th. As a matter of fact, Watson would be the only brit to finish top 15 in this moto.

Moto 2

Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Romain Febvre would come across the holeshot line three-wide with Cairoli and Prado. The former World Champion would then spend the opening five minutes of the moto trying and succeeding in getting by the KTM due from third place. Prado and Cairoli were far from clear either, as Gajser railed by the latter on the outside coming back to the start straight. Then it would be Prado who would spend upwards of five minutes trying to hold off the Slovenian. Gajser would finally complete the pass in the off-camber corner in the second half of the track.

With that all happening, Febvre had put up a sizeable gap to second behind him, and Gajser would slowly but surely chip away at it. Coming to the white flag, Gajser had caught the Frenchman and the battle for the win was on. Both riders would swap the lead multiple times on the final lap, but Gajser would make the winning move in the early downhill section. Despite picking up the Moto win, Cairoli’s 1-3 was just enough to secure the overall win. Now Cairoli also creeps ever closer to Stefan Everts‘ record of 101 combined GP wins as well. Currently, the Italian has 93 Overalls between the MX2 and MX1/MXGP Classes. Meanwhile, Gajser maintains the points lead over Herlings by 15 points heading into next week in Italy.

Top Ten Overall in MXGP

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Main Image Credit: Embed from Getty Images

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