Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP’s Romain Febvre defended his series points-lead in the FIM World MXGP Motocross Championship with his sixteenth podium of the season at Afyonkarahisar in Turkey.
He was squeezed on the run down to turn one in the first moto and was blocked from making his usual cut-back through the turn to come out sixth but he was already fourth within half a lap as the “big four” moved clear of the pack around the high-speed raceway. A smart transfer through a twin-lane turn took him to third on lap seven before the leaderboard settled again until the last ten minutes when the Kawasaki rider launched an attack which took him to less than two seconds from second entering the last lap before he ran out of time to make a move. The ice-cool Frenchman kept his nerves under control best at the start of race two as the starter held the riders for the maximum time to launch out of the gate, narrowly missing the holeshot award but with the drive to lead by turn two. He looked comfortable in front for half the race before a surprise move by his chaser caught him off-guard; the leading trio stayed close to the end as Febvre successfully resisted a last lap challenge to finish second in moto and third overall on the day. He now heads to the final two rounds of the championship with a twenty-six point lead in the series.
Romain Febvre: “The start was missing in the first race; I could stay with them all race after I passed Gajser but I didn’t get the jump and that cost me. We found something again for the second start and I could nearly holeshot; that always makes life easier. I only had a small gap to Jeffrey but I felt that was enough. I was focused on winning the GP as that is the best way to gain points but then some lines changed a bit during the moto. I tried to figure out where he was going but that’s never easy when you are the guy in front. I could stay with Jeffrey after he passed me but he was better than me today. I knew Lucas would push in the last laps so I concentrated on him at the end. Now we have two tracks which are new for everyone to end the season.”
It was a day of two different races for KRT teammate Pauls Jonass. The Latvian fitted a scoop tyre for the first moto and pulled a superb top-five start along the heavily-ripped drive to turn one but felt less comfortable around the remainder of the hard-baked track and found himself pushed back to eighth by half-distance. Reverting to a regular hardpack tyre for race two he inevitably suffered at the start but showed good speed to advance from eleventh on lap one to again finish eighth in the moto and also in the GP overall. He is now seventeenth in the series standings.
Pauls Jonass: “I had a good flow this morning but I went with a scoop tyre for the start in the first moto and didn’t have the best feeling for the rest of the track as it was really hard and slick. I took a normal hardpack tyre for the second moto, which didn’t help the start but I did find the flow and I enjoyed the second part of the moto after I stopped riding too aggressively. It was a consistent day but I need to do better in the last two GPs.”
