It was a bit like the hokey cokey. He was in on a 450 then he was out of the MXoN, then he was back in on a 250 for team Belgium. But from there, Lucas Coenen was a must watch rider all weekend. The Belgium was showing unbelievable speed, fastest in practice and running down Tom Vialle on Saturday only to crash on the last lap.
Then, on Sunday, Coenen worked his way into fifth in the opening moto against legends of the game and was at one, point, running faster lap times and closing in on Prado, Febvre and Tomac ahead of him – until he went down and ended his day early. But Coenen served notice that he is pretty special as he and De Wolf proved to be the class of the MX2 field with the speed of the elite 450 MXGP boys, underlining the speed they had in MX2 this season.
The 17 year old speedster said: “I had a strong qualifying run on Saturday – getting second, and I felt pretty good going into the races on Sunday. In the first moto I was pushing hard and making great progress, even battling with some of the top MXGP riders. Because my bike is lighter than the 450s I could take different lines and make up time through the deep ruts. Unfortunately, I had a crash on lap 13, and that ended my day early. It’s disappointing to not be able to finish the weekend – because I think I had really good speed. It’s the end of a long season now – so I will take some time to recover and train over the winter, and come back stronger.”
See him in action versus Ken Roczen below:
