Roger De Coster on Jeffrey Herlings

Roger De Coster has given us his view on Jeffrey Herlings as the Dutchman gets set to make his MXGP comeback after a year out with injury.

De Coster, a fellow five time world champion had this to say about Herlings, his speed and desire: “Jeffrey always seems to have the speed, he never seems to lose the speed after an injury. I hope that he can race without too much pain from his old foot injury. From what I hear, it’s a lot better, it still bothers him a little bit, but hopefully that goes away when the championship starts.

“If he is able to race I think Jeffrey will always be able to push himself to battle for the win. He just can push himself to go that little extra that it takes to do whatever it takes.”

On his favourite riders to watch, De Coster said he enjoys the smooth and the aggressive styles – and that Everts’ speed was deceptive! “I enjoy all the differences,” said Roger. “It’s fun to see Barcia rider with a lot of commitment and all that, it’s funny because when you see him in the week and you talk to him, he is one of the nicest kids that you can meet, but once he puts on a helmet, he becomes a different person!

“Stefan was fun to watch because he was so smooth and it looked like he was going slow, but when you put a stopwatch on him, you realised how fast he was going! Ricky was fun because you went to a race with him and you were certain he was on the podium. Bayle was fun, he was the first rider to blitz the whoops in supercross, he would do things completely different from that time. After the Americans really took over motocross and supercross , he was the first European rider that was able to beat the Americans. That was fun to watch and how he was doing it and his mentality. They are all different. Cooper today, he is fun to watch because when he is on, he can push himself at the end of a race like not many people can do.”

Watch the full interview below: