Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128381
Round 3 SUPERMOTO May 22, 2005 ~ P erhaps the most unexpected scenario thus far in the 200S FIM World Supermoto Championship Series has been the one where "Mr. Perfection," Thierry van den Bosch, was winless after the first two rounds. While this may have boded well for the championship, it was also pretty obvious that such a situation couldn't last long. In the Czech Republic, at the beautiful Sosnova facility, van den Bosch put everything back together, performing the way he is always expected to by dominating the entire race program. Starting from the timed practices and following with the Superpole, "VDB" sped to victory in both motos to claim the overall win. The Frenchman also took over the provisional lead of the championship in the matter of a single GP. It was the usual perfect day again for the 2004 World champ. On the other hand, Sosnova was a controversial GP for the winner of the first two rounds of the series, Husqvarna's Gerald Delepine, who has been in good shape as usual this year but not at the same level of VDB. Delepine set the second-fastest time in practice, closer to that of his teammate, Ivan Lazzarini, than to the much quicker VDB, whose impressive qualifying performances could be partly due to the fact that Michelin built a fantastic qualifying tire for the French ace. Even so, Delepine had a great first mota, leading for about nine laps before being passed by van den Bosch. In The second mota, Delepine ran in fourth place for 10 laps and then pulled over with a technical problem. Thus, second overall went to the Italian Lazzarini, who suffered two bad starts but came back strong, thanks to aggressive riding. In the S2 division, it was an important day for Daverio 44 JUNE 8, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS Honda's Massimo Beltrami, who didn't win either mota but rode extremely consistently and was the overall winner of the day on the same circuit where he suffered a terrible crash and a spine injury last year. It was also an important day for the other French specialist, Boris Chambon, who saw the light again after a nightmare beginning to the 200S series for him. Chambon won Superpole on Saturday, and despite a less-than-stellar first mota on Sunday, he did win the second mota. It was much the same story for the S2 Championship leader, Eddy Seel, who had a great win in mota one but a really poor result in mota two due to a couple of crashes. SI Van den Bosch started his full-deal win with a solid lap time in the Saturday timed session. Behind him were the same Delepine, Lazzarini and Bernd Hiemer that were there in the previous rounds this year. But even with the pole position on the grid, thanks to another perfect performance in the Superpole, VDB had a less-than-magical start off the grid in mota one. Delepine jumped to the front and started to run away, with the British Christian Iddon right on his tail and VDB following both of them. The track wasn't completely dry (as for the first mota of the S2 class), so VDB took it easy in the early stages of the race before passing Iddon on lap four, right after Iddon had briefly grabbed and lost the lead. Van den Bosch then focused on Delepine, and after six more laps, he made the pass and went on to take the victory. Lazzarini finished third after another so-so start. (He was eighth out of the first corner.) Hiemer wasn't really brilliant in the first mota (he finished sixth, behind Iddon and Swiss Marcel Goetz), but in the second mota, he was a real threat to his teammate VDB. The KTM duo started ahead the rest of the pack, and for a few laps, they were riding really fast and close. Then VDB got total control of the situation and won the second mota. Hiemer finished second, and Lazzarini again finished third after a start that was even worse than the one he got in the first moto. It was an incredible comeback that netted the Italian third place. Delepine was fourth for almost two-thirds of the mota but had to retire with some electrical troubles in his bike. That cost him the championship red plate (which