CYCLE NEWS RIDER OF THE YEAR AND FIM MXGP WORLD CHAMPION JEFFREY HERLINGS
P70
Feature
next to him," said Gruebel. "This
just makes it easier to judge and
keep on the right level, instead of
missing the right torque that he
needs. It seems to have helped
him quite a bit."
Herlings never looked back, or
sideways. He dragged his nor-
mally stubborn holeshot tally up to
eight and was consistently in the
top five around the first corner—an
asset that was the bedrock of his
surge of results. The strongest
thrust of which came with eight
perfect 1-1s in the last eight GPs
and a total of 465 laps led for the
year compared with Cairoli's 201.
It was around that time in Por-
tugal that Herlings also started
revealing the depth of his commit-
ment to control MXGP.
Tureluren had spoken of the
pivotal moment in junior races,
when humbled by future GP peer
Max Anstie on 85s, being the cat-
alyst for Herlings to make sure he
would not be humbled on equal
footing again. (And he rarely has
since 2012). He'd fostered a repu-
tation as a hard worker, which he
credits to his mother, Alice, as
well as the determination not to
concede defeat, and, perhaps,
Everts, before their relationship
cracked to the point of irreparabil-
ity in the wake of his broken femur
"I don't think I've had such a strong
competitor, and the age difference is quite
big, so it was difficult. He pushed the level
a bit higher, and at this age, it is difficult to
make these little clicks all the time to keep
up with the new guy."
– Antonio Cairoli
Herlings even did
some damage in
the U.S., namely
at the Motocross
of Nations.
