Eleven. That’s the number of points Jeffrey Herlings dropped in his title fight against Lucas Coenen in South Africa. Untouchable all weekend, the De Carli KTM rider was never challenged by anyone. Sixth on Saturday after a questionable gate pick in the qualifying race, Herlings then finished second twice behind the Belgian on Sunday. He leaves the eleventh round of the season now 68 points adrift in the championship standings. A trend he will need to reverse quickly, with eight Grands Prix remaining before the final curtain falls.
“Unfortunate crash in the first moto,” admits Herlings in South Africa. “Like Lucas said, if I had taken both holeshots and he had been fifth out of the starts, the results would have probably been reversed. We were more or less on the same pace again, but he got better starts all weekend. On Saturday, I made a stupid decision trying to start from the outside. In the moment, it really made no sense… It’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done [laughs]. But I came back from 15th to 6th, and there were already quite a few sketchy lines on the track. It wasn’t an easy track to pass on. Also, on Saturday everyone is still fresh. The Sunday moto’s matter more too, so I decided to move my gate about 30 meters to the right for the races…”
In the first moto, Jeffrey Herlings once again tried his usual late-race charge to close down the leader. But while he was closing in on Lucas Coenen, the Dutchman went down, before having to then hold off the return of Romain Febvre.
“I started around fifth place each time. But Lucas was already in the lead by the end of lap one in both motos. And when you’re roughly the same speed, it’s hard to make the difference. In the first moto, I closed in on him and then crashed. I lost the rear on a landing, nearly went into a high-side but just slid out in the end. I was lucky… Romain was coming, I saw him on the jump behind me, so I got going again as quickly as possible ahead of him.”
By the time he climbed back into second in the second moto, Lucas Coenen had once again built a gap at the front. And after a huge scare in a battle with Romain Febvre, the Honda HRC rider eventually backed off to secure second place in South Africa.
“In the second moto, I had a massive moment after passing Romain. There was a double-on followed by a triple, and I landed so hard my foot hit the ground… I saw Jesus. I have no idea how I stayed up, but I did. From there, I told myself I would try to stay with Lucas, but I knew I had used up my luck quota for the weekend, it was empty [laughs]. The goal was to bring it home safe. You can’t always win, but I still tried.”
Sitting at over 1,600 metres of altitude, the South African Grand Prix track required several adjustments from the teams, particularly regarding starts. With limited experience in these conditions on the Honda, Herlings admitted he had to experiment all weekend to find the right setup.
“We ran first gear all weekend, it’s no secret. I think everyone in the paddock ran first gear. That was really the only change we made. It’s difficult because we don’t have experience — or at least I don’t have experience — with the Honda at altitude. With KTM, I had a lot of data from previous years, I knew which sprocket to use, which RPM to aim for. Here, I had to guess what would work. It’s a shame that starts are so important nowadays.”
To conclude, Herlings analysed the South African Terra Topia circuit, which had a strong AMA-style feel this weekend. While the track was widely praised, the Dutchman once again pointed out issues with track preparation and a lack of passing opportunities that, in his view, affected the racing.
“The track was beautiful, one of the best on the calendar this year. But if you compare it to RedBud, it’s not the same at all. They had ten lines in every corner, you could pass left and right. For some reason I don’t understand, they can’t prepare tracks like the Americans, and this one was very US-style: very wide, but way too fast. They really need to work on that aspect to allow more passing. When we go to Arco, they are very limited by the size of the track and can’t really do much. Here, I feel they could have done better.”
