Aside from a crash and 11th place in the qualifying race in which Herlings admitted he had a small bike issue from the crash, the Dutchman’s MXGP debut on a Honda was just about perfect!
Herlings was quickest free practice, timed qualifying and went 1-1 in Sunday’s races to prove he only needed two months on the Honda to figure it out!
Herlings holeshot race one but teammate Vialle then passed him, only for Herlings pass him back with three laps to go for the win in a dream moto for Honda’s two new signings. In moto two, Herlings had another good start but got bumped around in turn two and came out at the back of the top ten, he then started a charge, passing all of his title rivals to eventually reel in a seven second lead that Febvre had and make the pass with three laps to go yet again, for the second moto win.
Herlings made a statement this weekend and he is probably only going to get quicker from here – don’t forget he even got a holeshot in the first moto! All of this is bad news for his competition.
Herlings said of his win: “It definitely wasn’t an easy one especially, second moto. I think it was my teammate Ruben, I was in second (into turn two) and he just smashed it in there which is fine, it was for position. But I lost a lot of positions, I think I was 8/9/10 and I managed to pass all the top guys.
Very happy with the win, I calculated my energy quite good so I had some energy left at the end of the moto. Going 1-1 today is pretty special with my new team.
“Unfortunately yesterday we had a small problem on the bike because of my crash, things like that happen but it was very unfortunate. Today we could go 1-1, very pleased with my day.“
