Jeffrey Herlings took his 111th GP win with a brilliant win in an intense and decisive moto two that saw Febvre gain two points back by barely holding Lucas Coenen off on the final lap!
Earlier in the day, Coenen took five points out of Febvre with a race win, as Herlings took second with Febvre not getting the start he needed, fighting back to third from sixth. In race two it was Febvre with the start and Coenen who had to come from sixth but Herlings refused to give in and hounded Febvre until he finally made the pass with a few minutes to go to seal another GP win.
Coenen, by this point was into third, but he had Gajser still on his tail, he saw his opportunity but couldn’t find the speed he needed immediately to reel in Febvre who was a frustrating couple of seconds in front of the 18 year old star. Then, with two to go, Coenen found the pace he needed and got right on Febvre by the last lap, he went for the block pass but didn’t pull the trigger on contact that even had Paul Malin saying, if it was him, he would have went for the contact pass this late in the title fight.
As it was, Coenen, to his own frustration, played nice and it cost him two points and four point swing in the championship. Febvre leads by 26 with two rounds to go as Herlings shows he is back on form on any surface and probably should be on the dutch MXoN team to Ironman!
Herlings said: “Super pleased with this win, it didn’t come easy! For a Dutch rider, this is one of the touighest tracks. Yes, I’ve won 111 GPs, but still, tracks like this don’t come easy to the Dutchies. This was definitely one of the most difficult ones (of his five wins in Turkey), the track was very difficult to pass, managed to get it done.”
Lucas Coenen immediately admitted regret at not pulling the trigger on the attemped pass on Febvre on the final lap: “Not much to say, the beginning of the weekend was good until the second moto started. I went a bit early (on the gate) and came from the back. In the end I wanted to push but I was a bit shy in the last lap, i could have ran into him, that’s racing. I had one opportunity and didn’t do it, was fustrating. Now it’s on, two rounds to go, we will give everything we have.”
Febvre said: “Second moto I was better, took the holeshot, I couldn’t do that in the first moto because we made a change too late. In the second moto I was leading and saw Jeffrey behind and thought, ‘I am winning the GP,’ but Jeffrey passed me and I tried to stay with him. The last couple of laps Lucas went really hard and tried to pass me but I could manage to finish second and didn’t lose to many points, so it’s pretty good.”
| MXGP – World Championship Classification |
| 1. Romain Febvre (FRA, KAW), 885 points; 2. Lucas Coenen (BEL, KTM), 859 p.; 3. Glenn Coldenhoff (NED, FAN), 638 p.; 4. Ruben Fernandez (ESP, HON), 557 p.; 5. Calvin Vlaanderen (NED, YAM), 528 p.; 6. Jeffrey Herlings (NED, KTM), 522 p.; 7. Maxime Renaux (FRA, YAM), 483 p.; 8. Andrea Bonacorsi (ITA, FAN), 480 p.; 9. Tim Gajser (SLO, HON), 411 p.; 10. Jeremy Seewer (SUI, DUC), 358 p.; 11. Jan Pancar (SLO, KTM), 299 p.; 12. Ben Watson (GBR, BET), 281 p.; 13. Brian Bogers (NED, FAN), 279 p.; 14. Jago Geerts (BEL, YAM), 277 p.; 15. Kevin Horgmo (NOR, HON), 243 p.; 16. Isak Gifting (SWE, YAM), 242 p.; 17. Pauls Jonass (LAT, KAW), 235 p.; 18. Mattia Guadagnini (ITA, DUC), 206 p.; 19. Brent Van doninck (BEL, HON), 191 p.; 20. Roan Van De Moosdijk (NED, KTM), 168 p. |
The gloves were off in MX2 as the title fight went from three to two after Andrea Adamo’s bad weekend continued following the crash after his collision with Längenfelder yesterday spiralled with bad starts.
Simon Längenfelder and Kay de Wolf felt the title tension but both delivered in their own way with Längenfelder getting the final, crucial, shot back at De Wolf in moto two to hold a charging de Wolf off to win the overall and prevent a six point swing if De Wolf had made the pass!
Sacha Coenen controlled the opening moto to win with class but Kay De Wolf got the top three start he needed to stay second despite Längenfelder coming through from sixth to third.
But it was roles reversed in race two as Längenfelder got away top three with de Wolf sixth and the pressure was on both title combatants. Once Längenfelder got his rhythm he picked off Coenen and then leader, Farres, following a bar-banging battle for third with McLellan that left the South African on the ground.
De Wolf finally passed Coenen for third after numerious attempts, but by this stage, Längenfelder was 8 seconds ahead until a mistake saw his gap drop to three second and this gave De Wolf the impetous lay it on the line again. He put a supreme pass on Farres through the waves and gave everything to catch Längenfelder’s 3.5 second gap in three all-out laps. He got the gap down to 1.5 with a lap to go but the German championship leader held on to take a vital win.
De Wolf closed in three points over the weekend but if positions were reversed in moto two it would have been nine points! Längenfelder goes to China 12 points ahead with two rounds to go.
Längenfelder said: “First of all, my parents are at home, I think my father’s heart stopped, I’m sorry for the extra excitement but I am happy! It wasn’t easy, I really needed to fight hard after some bad weekends, super happy. I wish I had my heart rate monitor on in this moto, because I think I went over 200bhp for sure after that crash, but brought it home, so happy. Ready to go to China now.”
De Wolf said: “Just ran out of time, showed I was the fastest, looking forward to China, can’t wait for that one and Australia, really looking forward to the next two.”
| MX2 – GP Classification |
| 1. Simon Längenfelder (GER, KTM), 45 points; 2. Kay de Wolf (NED, HUS), 44 p.; 3. Sacha Coenen (BEL, KTM), 43 p.; 4. Guillem Farres (ESP, TRI), 35 p.; 5. Mathis Valin (FRA, KAW), 33 p.; 6. Liam Everts (BEL, HUS), 32 p.; 7. Camden Mc Lellan (RSA, TRI), 27 p.; 8. Thibault Benistant (FRA, YAM), 25 p.; 9. Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), 25 p.; 10. Valerio Lata (ITA, HON), 23 p.; 11. Jens Walvoort (NED, KTM), 18 p.; 12. Oriol Oliver (ESP, KTM), 17 p.; 13. Maxime Grau (FRA, KTM), 16 p.; 14. Kay Karssemakers (NED, KAW), 13 p.; 15. Karlis Alberts Reisulis (LAT, YAM), 13 p.; 16. Rick Elzinga (NED, YAM), 13 p.; 17. Burak Arli (TUR, YAM), 7 p.; 18. Cas Valk (NED, KTM), 4 p.; |
| MX2 – World Championship Classification |
| 1. Simon Längenfelder (GER, KTM), 833 points; 2. Kay de Wolf (NED, HUS), 821 p.; 3. Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), 771 p.; 4. Sacha Coenen (BEL, KTM), 701 p.; 5. Thibault Benistant (FRA, YAM), 603 p.; 6. Camden Mc Lellan (RSA, TRI), 582 p.; 7. Liam Everts (BEL, HUS), 576 p.; 8. Guillem Farres (ESP, TRI), 427 p.; 9. Valerio Lata (ITA, HON), 413 p.; 10. Mathis Valin (FRA, KAW), 409 p.; 11. Cas Valk (NED, KTM), 355 p.; 12. Karlis Alberts Reisulis (LAT, YAM), 298 p.; 13. Oriol Oliver (ESP, KTM), 290 p.; 14. Rick Elzinga (NED, YAM), 275 p.; 15. Ferruccio Zanchi (ITA, HON), 220 p.; |
