Kawasaki Racing Team MX2’s Mathis Valin battled the title candidates in both motos of the Swedish round of the FIM World MX2 Motocross Championship at Uddevalla to secure two more top-six finishes.
The French teenager got a good jump out of the gate at the start of race two and made a neat inside pass at turn two to emerge fourth before engaging in a series of enthralling duels with each of the three title candidates. The class rookie eventually had to give best to each of them but not without offering stout resistance as he confirmed his potential. He again showed his growing confidence in race two, immediately building on another fourth-placed start to charge into third halfway round the opening lap and hold the placing comfortably until a single lapse on the final lap as he ran off track. The excursion cost one position in the moto but had no impact on the overall weekend ranking of sixth overall. He has consolidated the tenth placing in the series standings which he had taken over the previous day and can now look forward confidently to advancing further into the championship top-eight before the end of the season.
Mathis Valin: “It was another good weekend. I have the speed and everything is coming better and better; I am learning so much even faster than I could have expected when I race with the top guys at the front every week. I was racing in P4 for most of race one before the riders racing for the championship could pass me at the end. In the second moto I was again fighting with the top guys; I stayed third ahead of the world champion until the last lap before I unfortunately made a big mistake and Kay could pass me. Anyway, back to sand next week at a new track for me; I never raced Arnhem before.”
Antti Pyrhönen (KRT team manager): “Mathis was very impressive again and is performing at the highest level. It’s important that he is racing with the front group as he needs to be there to learn for the future; and we saw today that he was fighting with the world champion right through to the last lap of the second moto.”
Bike It Kawasaki’s Kay Karssemakers made a good getaway in race one to hold down thirteenth at the end of the first lap. He made a couple of good passes to advance to eleventh by lap six before surrendering a position in the later stages of the race to finish twelfth. The Dutchman again ran strongly in fifteenth through the first few laps of race two before gradually dropping back to eighteenth in the second half of the moto. He was sixteenth overall.
Photocredits – Pascal Haudiquert
