Kawasaki Racing Team MX2’s Mathis Valin ended his rookie FIM World MX2 Motocross Championship season tenth in the series standings after a dramatic final round at Darwin in Australia.
A clever line through turn two saw the teenager cement fifth position through the early laps of race one and, continuing to build, he moved into fourth on lap ten and pushed for the third step of the moto podium to the finish. His eighteen-point haul also brought him to within two points of ninth in the series heading into the final moto of the season. In a dramatic turn of events the second race started in fine weather, but rain was already falling before the completion of the first lap; within five minutes the rainfall became torrential and the track was getting flooded ever deeper by the minute. Valin quickly moved into sixth, ahead of his rival for ninth in the series, on the opening lap; as track conditions became ever more treacherous everything was still open but a mistake on lap six cost the youngster six positions. He mounted a recovery at the rate of two positions each lap and had pulled back to eighth when the red-flag came out to halt the race early; however, as results in such circumstances are on countback to the previous lap, he was classified eleventh in the moto for ninth overall on the day and tenth in the series final standings.
Mathis Valin: “I had a good start in the first moto and had good pace for P4, but the second moto was crazy. There was so much water and suddenly I had no brakes on a downhill; I was physically OK but I needed to stop at the pits. I was riding well again in the mud but I was too far behind after the crash to make a result.”
Bike It Kawasaki’s Kay Karssemakers gated ninth in race one but an incident on the opening lap cost the Dutchman half a minute and he spent the remainder of the race recovering from last to fourteenth. He gated fifteenth in race two but was soon moving forward as track conditions worsened; by lap six he was tenth and had advanced to sixth as the red-flag stopped racing. On countback to the previous lap he was classified seventh in moto, twelfth overall in the GP and twenty-first in the championship final standings despite only joining the series mid-summer.
Kay Karssemakers: “I crashed big-time with another rider on the first lap of race one and hit my knee. I was so far behind after that but I kept pushing to the end and came back to P14. I made a good decision for race two to choose roll-offs; I crashed one time but I could keep riding to the end. I was sixth when the red flag came out and that would have been good for tenth overall but on countback I was P7 and twelfth overall. Anyway it was nice to finish the season on a high; I can’t wait for next year and we will see where we are after a lot of work during the winter.”
