IN
THE
WIND
P18
FEBVRE, HERLINGS TOP THAILAND MXGP
T
he second round of the 2016
MXGP World Championship
saw the tour head to Suphan
Buri, Thailand, March 6, in what
is the third different Thai location
in four years. This time it was lo-
cated a couple of hours north of
Bangkok, but as Ben Townley so
eloquently put it "in the middle
of nowhere." He made it clear
in a pre-race press conference
that he was not impressed with
the Supan Buri track, nor was
he pleased with the Qatar track
the week before.
Opinion is always divided on
whether these places are worthy
of hosting an MXGP but regard-
less of your point of view, the
combination of heat and track
conditions always provides a
real test for man and machine.
With Dylan Ferrandis injur-
ing himself during the Saturday
qualification race and having to
fly back to France with a dis-
located shoulder, Jeffrey Her-
lings' main question mark was
how much he'd win by. And the
answer was 32 seconds in race
one and 24 seconds in race
two. It was a pretty dominant
performance, leading from the
start in the first moto and having
to come from third place in the
second race. The Red Bull KTM
rider did have a brief dangerous
moment when trying to pass the
continually improving Samuele
Bernardini on TM for second,
but other than that, it was a
pretty routine victory.
Behind Herlings was Swiss
rider Jeremy Seewer who had to
make passes in both races for
his pair of third-place finishes.
Aleksandr Tonkov rounded
off the podium but really should
have finished a place higher
after being well-placed in the
second moto before crashing
and dropping back.
Max Anstie stormed through
the pack in the second moto to
take second but unfortunately a
first moto DNF leaves him in 12th
place in the MX2 Championship,
even at this early stage.
American Thomas Covington
rode well in the first moto for
Romain Febvre
returned to
the top step of
the podium in
Thailand.
PHOTOGRAPHY
COURTESY
YAMAHA
