Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP’s Romain Febvre qualified third for tomorrow’s eighteenth round of the FIM World MXGP Motocross Championship at Afyonkarahisar in Turkey to maintain his lead in the series points-standings.
Lap times were extremely close on the extremely fast raceway a thousand metres above sea level in the interior of Anatolia and just fractions of a second separated the top-three in Timed Practice. The Kawasaki leader experienced a momentary loss of drive on the unpredictable surface of the start straight but he recovered well through the long sweeping first turn to emerge fourth. He stayed there in a high-speed train before launching into third on lap seven of twelve down the back straight after building momentum through the turn on the approach. With only one championship point on offer for each potential pass he was then satisfied to bring home third place safely.
Romain Febvre: “I rode a good first turn on the inside but my start was not so good so we will make some adjustments to the settings for tomorrow. The riding was ok, but not crazy; the track is extra fast and not so bumpy so to close a gap was quite difficult.”
KRT teammate Pauls Jonass showed already in Timed Practice that he is quickly regaining his known pace as he posted the sixth-fastest time and by the end of the first lap of Qualifying he had made sixth his own. He pushed the rider in fifth – a current year GP winner – for the remainder of the race but they both had a similar speed and rode error-free races on the high-speed raceway.
Pauls Jonass: “The day started quite well already with P6 in Timed Practice; that was positive as it’s important to have a good gate-pick here. I got a decent jump out of the gate but I went in some heavy stuff at the first turn. I could come through to sixth by the end of the first lap and felt good there all race behind Renaux; we were the same speed so I couldn’t pass but I felt good generally with no mistakes so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.
Kawasaki Racing Team MX2’s Mathis Valin made an excellent jump from gate nine in Qualifying for the FIM World MX2 Motocross Championship to storm past the pits in fourth, only to be held up on the inside line of turn two to be pushed back to tenth, a position he maintained until moving forward to ninth of lap nine of twelve.
Mathis Valin: “I made a good start from the outside but after that I didn’t have a good first lap and got pushed back a few positions. It was so difficult to pass back because the track is so fast and we all had the same speed.”
Bike It Kawasaki’s Kay Karssemakers was similarly stuck in the high-speed train in twelfth until a late pass for eleventh.
