Beirer on Herlings – unbelievable spirit
Pit Beirer says it was tough to see Jeffrey Herlings hurt again and it took the Dutchman, who Beirer believes to be the hardest working rider in MXGP, a couple of weeks to mentally come to terms with what happened when he crashed in Faenza and temporarily lost feeling in his legs and a fifth world title.
“This was really tough, it was a tough pill to swallow,” admitted Pit when talking to Gatedrop. “We all worked together to make him a little bit more calm and to use the energy in the right moment. He had more than a 60 point lead so everything was going correct but still this sport is dangerous and the smallest little mistake can again set you off track and that’s what happened.
“The boy has an unbelievable spirt and fighting spirit and he wants to work really hard but for sure this was a tough moment for him. So many times he has had to work himself back from injury, the body is not fit after injury , you have to work to come back to the level of the top guys.
“I can honestly say he is working more than anyone else, he does all the work again to come back to pass all the guys and be stronger than the guys and he had another setback. Before this time, in the past, we could see terrible mistakes and it had to happen (a crash), so we need to change his style, his working style, but this time we didn’t see a huge mistake. It was a Sunday morning lap without putting any pressure on, five seconds off the top times, it was really a little mistake with a really high price.
“I’m glad he can do all the effort again and say okay, ‘let’s now summarize where we are, I still have this other little injury in my foot,’ so we agreed together to step out of the championship, not to bring him back as soon as possible to secure any position in the championship. The whole motocross world knows him, for him a second place or third place or fourth place means nothing, he wants to win a title or stay home. So okay, let’s take a deep breath, go home, fix all the small injuries and take a proper rest then slowly to prepare next year carefully with a very strong pace we will get help from the Red Bull training centre here in Salzburg.
“I also could see in the first two or three weeks it was really hard for Jeffrey to really get the mind free again. This time it was looking back at the points standings and seeing another world title slip through our fingers. When I speak about him I speak about us, his mechanics, everybody was working so hard for this. If you are in a programme for Jeffrey, you also work hard! If it is raining or snowing or one metre high water in Lommel, you would not even send a dog or a cat out there – he is doing 40 minute motos!
“Yeah, it’s a setback but we will all not give up in this kind of position. Our big target is to get Jeffrey back healthy and stronger for the championship next year.”
Article: Jonathan McCready
Images: Ray Archer/ JP Acevedo
