Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP’s Romain Febvre advanced to third in the FIM World MXGP Motocross Championship series standings with his second podium of the season – his first since round one in Argentina – in his home GP at Lacapelle-Marival.
The defending champion indicated he had the speed with fastest time in morning Warm-up and he had his wheel in front out of the start in the first moto but he was not far enough clear from gate five to cut across to the apex of the first turn and was pushed wide to emerge tenth. He advanced quickly to eighth before falling in a long sweeping left-hander two laps later. He was soon back in the top-ten amd at half-distance made a decisive pass for eighth. The next rider was ten seconds further up the track but the Kawasaki ace continued to push and swept past for seventh five laps from the finish. Fifth through the first few turns of the second moto, he made a clean pass for fourth on lap three and five later, setting the fastest lap of the race, he secured third after a monumental duel. Urged on by the home crowd he maintained the same lap times as the leaders for several laps but as it became clear that it would not be possible to pull back the ten-second advantage they had built as the Frenchman advanced through traffic he settled for third in moto and overall through the final laps. His forty-point weekend haul has lifted the Kawasaki leader to third in the series standings.
Romain Febvre: “I wasn’t expecting a podium after that first race; I used a lot of energy for that seventh after the crash. I had to fight hard again in race two for third so I’m so happy to make it to the podium for the French fans.”
KRT teammate Pauls Jonass looked comfortable in eighth for half of the first moto, but he lost his flow during the second half of the moto to be pushed back temporarily to thirteenth before regrouping decisively on the final lap, dropping his lap time by two seconds to regain twelfth. An horrific accident at the start of race two when another rider crashed in his path as they sped full-gas towards turn two left the Latvian to pick himself up and battle from dead-last but he dug deep to put in one of his best rides of the season, maintaining top-six lap times to the finish to narrowly miss a top-ten finish by just half-a-second. He remains eleventh in the points-standings.
Pauls Jonass: “It was a difficult day. I didn’t get the best jump in the first race but I came good through the first couple of turns to be eighth; then I got armpump already on the second lap so it was difficult to hold on after that. We switched to a hardpack tyre for race two but Pancar crashed right in front of me coming out of turn one and I hit his bike. I hit my ribs and was struggling for breath for a couple of laps but I kept pushing with good lap times and got to eleventh, not far from eighth, at the finish. It was a decent ride but the result was not what we are looking for.”
Antti Pyrhönen (KRT team manager): “It was a great weekend for us here in France with podiums in both classes, but it was not easy and we had to work for it; the rewards were fully deserved for both the riders and the teams. It was a good start after the break as we head into a heavy race schedule and it was visible that we had worked hard through this last month with three international races and also some testing; I am really proud of everyone for their efforts. Romain has just missed podium several times so it was a boost to get a podium again in front of his home fans.”
