Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP’s Romain Febvre consolidated his second place in the FIM World MXGP Motocross Championship at Pietramurata in the north Italian region Trentino with his fourth podium from five GPs this season.
The Frenchman’s KX450-SR took him to a clear holeshot in the first moto and there followed a cat-and-mouse duel for victory as his chief rival for the title was immediately second and the pair raced relentlessly ever further clear of the pack with never more than a couple of seconds between them. Yellow flags at the twenty-minute stage of the race cost the Frenchman the slight advantage he had built through lapped traffic and a mistaken line choice five laps from the finish allowed his rival to slip past. Febvre responded with the fastest laps of the race to herald a potential nail-biting finish, but a fall as his front wheel slipped away in a soft rut halfway round the final lap ended the charge. There was no danger of losing second as the leading duo had built an advantage of more than thirty seconds over the rest. Another good start in race two was negated as a rider on the inside went straight on at turn one and the Kawasaki rider found himself eighth. By the end of the lap he was sixth and on lap four rode around the next rival for fifth but further advances proved difficult in a ferocious leaderboard battle until a number of moves in the space of a lap after twenty minutes took Febvre to second. A series of sub-1-50 laps saw him halve the ten second gap to the leader but time ran out to mount a final challenge and he again had to settle for second. Second overall on the day has consolidated his second place in the series standings.
Romain Febvre: “The last two weeks has been all about Tim and me, and one of us has to win; last week it was me, this week it was him. In the first moto I took the holeshot, which always makes life easier. It was close between us but I was feeling confident even if the gap was quite small. We had two yellow flags for fallen lappers and maybe I slowed down too much which let Tim get closer and then I left the door wide open; I really don’t know why I went outside in that turn where he passed me because I had gone inside the lap before. I was the fastest so I thought I could manage to come back at him and I tried everything, making the fastest laps, but I crashed when I lost the front end in a soft rut. My second start was also good but Fernandez came from the inside and pushed me wide; there was chaos in the first few turns and I was tenth or something. I knew I needed to pass quickly as I could see Tim was in front but it’s difficult to pass here and it took me too long to get to second; by then the gap was too big to first. I will take the second but I need to win more often to close the points gap.”
Photocredits – Fullspectrum Media
