Romain Febvre gave the crowd what they wanted with a brilliant overall win but it wasn’t easy! Febvre gave it everything he had to run down and then hold off a determined Lucas Coenen in race two who took it right to the final corner in a battle for the overall win in front of a loud and effervescent French crowd who got their money’s worth at Ernee today!
Coenen holeshot race one and, for 20 minutes, had to hold off a charge from Jeffrey Herlings, who finally got a good start! With five mintues to go, Febvre passed Herlings who lost his flow slightly and even let Febvre by, but Coenen stayed mistake free despite the late surge from the Frenchman.
In race two Coenen holeshot again but Febvre was quickly into second and for nearly 20 minutes, Febvre hounded Coenen but the young Belgian didn’t make a mistake – until he did! Coenen got only slightly off balance in the ruts up a hill, but it was just enough to stall his momentum as Febvre surged by accompanied by ferocious roar from the joyous crowd!
But Coenen wasn’t done and he stayed right with Febvre giving his all until the checkered flag, but Febvre remained mistake free urged on by that fervent crowd to ensure the overall win after two brilliant motos.
Jeffrey Herlings was half a second away from the finding the podium for the first time this season, after a bad start in race two saw him gate at the back of the top ten, get to sixth, crash, go back to tenth then get back to fifth and only half a second off Isak Gifting for fourth. But he needed that fourth to edge Jeremy Seewer who rode superbly well in race two to take third and ran close to Coenen and Febvre for a long time – that Ducati is the real deal and Seewer is looking better and better on it.
Febvre said: “Big win here in France for sure. Everyone wanted me to win! I had a really good first moto, I had a bad start but came back really strong. That second moto I was second behind Lucas quickly and then he was riding really good, I had to check the lines to see where I could pass him and he made a mistake on the uphill and I won the GP, you cannot imagine how happy I am to win the GP! It’s amazing to win at home, to win like this means a lot to me.”
In MX2 it was a KTM dream day with Simon Längenfelder dominating the opening moto in the ruts in a brilliant ride that underlined his ability to become world champ in 2025. Behind him was teammate and title rival, Andrea Adamo, in second and they both got a huge boost with championship leader, Kay de Wolf, crashing twice and only finishing 15th!
In the second moto, Längenfelder and Adamo had a battle royal for the win until, with two laps to go, Adamo made a huge mistake after pitlane, nearly going down, and that ended his hopes of putting the pass on Längenfelder who won both motos and now takes the red plate into Germany, his home GP!
Adamo took second overall and that put him second in the championship, 11 back of Längenfelder, with De Wolf, now 25 points back of the championship lead after another diaster in race two that saw him crash out of turn one and have to come from last to 12th.
Rounding out the podium was Sacha Coenen who, despite a crash in race one, did enough with a 6-4 to get back on the podium after tough few weeks.
Längenfelder said: “It went really good, so happy. I was quite sick coming into this week and didn’t know how it’s going to go. I think I have the championship lead, so that is incredible, finally the red plate.”
