Jeffrey Herlings was not happy after two second place finishes at Redsand and is determined to fix his starts so he can start up front with Cairoli and not have to come from behind every moto.
Herlings says he is hoping to get some parts this week to test to help with his starts but his frustration was clear at the end of a weekend that saw him ride well but starts and that second moto crash meant his slim six points lead ahead of Cairoli vanished with both riders tied for the MXGP points lead going into round four in Cairoli’s home county of Italy.
Read what a frustrated Herlings had to say below:
“It wasn’t a good weekend at all. I came here to try and win but both starts messed it up, especially the first one. The second one wasn’t bad I was in third or fourth place then I crashed in the first lap and had to come from around 15th or 20th but I still fought my way up to Tony.
“In the first moto once I got to second I seen there was only a few minutes left and I was still 5-7 seconds behind Tony so I just let it go because I knew I couldn’t make up the ground and I wanted to save myself for the second moto.
“I am getting some parts to try for the start this weekend, so that should be better for me. We have a good bike already but at the moment I personally think I am losing the race at the starts. We expect some things this week and hoping we can improve on that so we can start with the guy next to me (Cairoli) instead of trying to fight my way through the pack before I get there. I think once I get the start we will put ourselves in a way better position.
“The compeition is strong but it’s tough to always have to ge through the pack, every weekend has been like this to come outside the top ten and then I run out of time and just barely don’t make it. It’s not nice to start from that position. What I do know is that we have a great team behind me and we still have 17 races left to solve the problem and we are definitely going to work on that. I’m not the best starter but I try to at least work on it and combining with the bike we are still trying to improve to be better on the bike.”
Pic: Ray Archer