Stat Sheet: Fourth Round

There is so much that goes on at each FIM Motocross World Championship round that it is inevitable that you will overlook certain things. That is where our regular ‘Stat Sheet’ feature comes into play, however, as we focus on the details that you may have overlooked.

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– Jeffrey Herlings took a holeshot at the Grand Prix of Trentino, which is always a novelty. It had not actually been that long since his last holeshot though. The last time that he led right off of the bat was in the final moto of the previous season at Villars sous Ecot. Those are the only two holeshots that he has taken on a 450F and, to put that into perspective, Antonio Cairoli has claimed twenty-one holeshots through that same period.

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– The race was on at the beginning of the second moto, as Jeffrey Herlings and Antonio Cairoli started in first and second. Herlings pushed into the lead quite quickly, which most readers are aware of, but Cairoli kept things close for a while. The chart below highlights the lap times from that point in the moto.

– Something odd happened in the first encounter at the Grand Prix of Trentino, as neither Red Bull KTM rider set the best lap of the race. Clement Desalle managed to do that on the fifth lap. When was the last time that someone other than Antonio Cairoli or Jeffrey Herlings set the fastest time in a moto? The opening moto at the USGP last year, as Eli Tomac went quicker than anyone else, but when did another Grand Prix regular last stop those two? Romain Febvre managed it in the second moto in Sweden last season.

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– In the post-race press conference at the Grand Prix of Trentino, Antonio Cairoli stated that he always struggles in the turn after the finish. “On that corner I always struggle a little bit to find the braking points,“ Cairoli stated. “I went a little bit too far and I was thinking that he would be coming from the outside, like the lap before, so I just kept the outside line, but then he was on the inside. He had a good move on that lap. I had a small mistake, which made it a little bit easier, but that is racing.” The times below cover the first sector during the second moto and it is quite clear that he consistently lost two or three tenths a lap right after the finish.

– Jeffrey Herlings swept the Grand Prix of Trentino, so stood atop the podium for the seventieth time in his career at just twenty-three years of age. This was the ninth time that he has triumphed on Italian soil and also his ninth victory in the premier division. Is it time to ask who will reach one hundred victories first? Antonio Cairoli currently has eighty-four wins. Even if he reaches the milestone first and breaks the record, it is likely that he will not hold it for very long at all.

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– Clement Desalle is off to a very strong start in the premier division, with three trips up onto the overall podium in three races. When was the last time that he was this consistent at the beginning of a season? 2015, his final term with Rockstar Energy Suzuki World MXGP, when he finished on the box at the first four stops on the calendar. Desalle was second overall at three of those events and had one hundred and seventy-one points following the eighth moto. One hundred and forty-five points is his current total.

– The one hundred and forty-five points that Clement Desalle has are enough for him to occupy third in the championship standings and that is actually a rather high number. It is rare for the rider in third to have a total that high after four rounds, as the last time that it happened was four years ago. Jeremy Van Horebeek sat third in the standings with one hundred and fifty-four points that season. Can Desalle maintain his current level of form across an entire season? It was tricky for him to do that last year.

– Clement Desalle actually did a good job of staying close to Jeffrey Herlings in the opening moto, as the lap times below show. Could Desalle be the one who stops the KTM domination in MXGP? There is no doubt that he is a great candidate.

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– The runner-up position that Clement Desalle acquired in the second moto was a season-best finish. Who else had one of those at Pietramurata? Tim Gajser (fifth), Maxime Desprey (eleventh), Ken De Dycker (sixteenth) and Ander Valentin (eighteenth).

– Yamaha have not had a rider on the overall podium thus far, which is obviously fairly disappointing. It was actually the year that they ended up winning the championship with Romain Febvre, 2015, so perhaps that stat acts as a reminder to not read too much into the series standings at this stage? Honda are in exactly the same position, with no overall podiums to their name, and have not started a season like that since 2012.

– There are no British riders in the top ten in the premier-division standings, following four rounds, but has a season ever started in that fashion for British fans? There were actually no British riders in the top ten at this point three years ago, as Shaun Simpson sat in eleventh and Tommy Searle ran twenty-second.

– Max Anstie has been remarkably consistent through his career, but does not get much recognition for that. The Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing rider has not scored points in four motos in a row now, because he has not lined up, and reached the same figure with a knee injury at this point last season. Missing two consecutive rounds is foreign territory though, as that has never happened to him before. A majority of riders would love to have stayed as healthy as that throughout their respective careers.

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– Jorge Prado has climbed up in the record books, thanks to his latest victory. With four overall wins to his name, he is now tied with Andrew McFarlane and Christophe Pourcel on the list of all-time MX2 winners. Rui Goncalves also has four to his name. The Italian victory was the one hundred and forty-second time that a KTM-mounted rider has won an MX2 Grand Prix too. Incredible!

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– For the second time this season, Thomas Covington slipped past Jorge Prado to take a victory on the final lap. How did that happen? The lap times that are highlighted below offer a great look at how the former was able to inch closer and eventually pounce.

– Thomas Covington always seems to turn his campaign around at the fourth round. ’64’ had not finished higher than eighth through the first three rounds last year, for instance, and then came out and won the second moto at the fourth race. Things were similar two seasons ago, as he bettered his results from the first three races at round four.

– For a great look at how Thomas Covington has improved since he first arrived in Europe, just peruse his results at the Grand Prix of Trentino. One could certainly argue that Pietramurata meets all European stereotypes and can be difficult for expats to get accustomed to. That was certainly the case with Covington, as he pulled in a total of two points the first time that he raced there. 27-19-21-16-11-3-5-1 is the scorecard that he has amassed over the last five seasons at this particular circuit.

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– Henry Jacobi became the first breakthrough star to land on the overall podium for the first time. It is actually rare for a German rider to do that in MX2, as no one had managed it since Ken Roczen last did it in 2011. There was a drought of two thousand four hundred and nine days for German fans. Have any other German riders finished on the overall podium in MX2? Just one. Marcus Schiffer managed it at the Grand Prix of Sweden in 2007.

– Husqvarna have had some great riders pilot their FC 250 machinery in recent years. Romain Febvre, Aleksandr Tonkov, Max Anstie, Thomas Covington and Thomas Kjer Olsen have all put the Austrian manufacturer up onto the box. However, unbelievably, the Grand Prix of Trentino was the first time that Husqvarna have had two MX2 riders on the overall podium at the same time. It is extremely likely that will happen again at some point this season.

– Vsevolod Brylyakov was extremely pleased to return to the top three at the Grand Prix of Trentino. It has been a rocky road for the Russian, who will be booted out of the MX2 division at the end of the season, as he spent a majority of the previous season on the sidelines. Brylyakov went seven hundred and twenty-two days without finishing inside of the top three at the highest level. This was the second time that he has slipped into the top three in a race.

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– The third-place finish that Vsevolod Brylyakov acquired in the second moto was a season-best finish. Jorge Prado (first), Thomas Covington (first), Henry Jacobi (second), Davy Pootjes (sixth), Michele Cervellin (sixth) and Zachary Pichon (sixteenth) also recorded personal bests on the rocky surface.

– Ben Watson made more moves than anyone else at the Grand Prix of Trentino – he passed twenty-five riders across the two motos. Although he was pushing through traffic for a majority of the opening moto, he was actually the fastest rider on track at points. The table below highlights how his lap times compared to Jorge Prado, the winner the opening moto, towards the end. Prado obviously backed it down significantly on the final five laps, but note that Watson managed to maintain the same pace all of the way to the end.

– The Grand Prix of Trentino was poignant for Davy Pootjes, as it was the third-best weekend of his career. A sixth and an eighth left him in sixth overall on the day and with twenty-eight points to his name. The only time that he has done better than that at the Grand Prix of Belgium back in 2015 (thirty points) and the Grand Prix of Indonesia (twenty-nine points) last season.

Words: Lewis Phillips | Lead Image: Husqvarna/J.P Acevedo