VOL. 53 ISSUE 21 JUNE 1, 2016 P33
dium was Honda's Gautier
Paulin, and it was good to
see the Honda rider back
where he belongs. An inju-
ry-hit campaign has ruled
out any championship
hopes but he still wants
to prove he's one of the
best in the world and this
performance shows he is back
headed in the right direction. His
4-3 scores owed much to good
starts on a track that was tricky
to pass on, but it was still good
for his fans to see him up there.
It was just another day at the
office in the MX2 class for Red
Bull KTM's Jeffrey Herlings,
sweeping both motos quite com-
fortably on a track where some
predicted he might have prob-
lems beating the resurgent Dylan
Ferrandis. That certainly wasn't
the case, though, as he swept
past the Frenchman on his way
to the first-moto victory by over
20 seconds. In the second race
he had to pass a few more guys,
with another Frenchman Benoit
Paturel his last victim before
winning by seven seconds. For
Paturel, his 4-2 results were
good enough for second place
on the podium with Herlings'
teammate Pauls Jonass' pair of
thirds seeing him round out the
top three.
In the championship, a first-
lap crash by Jeremy Seewer in
race one meant that he could
only manage 11th place before
he improved with a fourth in race
two. This stretches out Herlings'
championship lead to 115 points
over the Swiss rider and surely it
is just a matter of time before he
gets crowned champ (although
we've said that before).
A last-minute switch and a
trans-Atlantic flight saw Ameri-
can Dakota Alix make his World
Championship debut, riding
on the iFLy JK Racing Yamaha
team. After a reasonably suc-
cessful SX season where he was
known for his holeshots (aboard
a KTM) it was a bit of a shock
to see him here riding blue but
he acquitted himself admirably,
going 28-16 in the first of his
scheduled four GPs.
In the EMX250 series, Ameri-
can Darian Sanayei had a good
chance to move into second in
the championship, but could
only go 13-4 in the two races.
Crashes in both motos cost him
valuable points and with cham-
pionship leader Thomas Kjer Ol-
sen going 1-1, the title looks out
of reach for the young American.
However, with Australian Hunter
Lawrence struggling with consis-
tency, second place is definitely
up for grabs.
David Bulmer
MXGP
1. Tim Gajser (1-1)
2. Max Nagl (2-2)
3. Gautier Paulin (4-3)
4. Clement Desalle (3-6)
5. Evgeny Bobryshev (6-5)
MX2
1. Jeffrey Herlings (1-1)
2. Benoit Paturel (4-2)
3. Pauls Jonass (3-3)
4. Dylan Ferrandis (2-5)
5. Aleksandr Tonkov (6-6)
(Left) Tim Gajser (center),
Max Nagl (left) and Gautier
Paulin celebrate on the
MXGP podium.
(Right) Rockstar Energy
Husqvarna's Nagl (12) grabs
the holeshot just ahead of
Honda's Paulin (21).
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
RAY
ARCHER/HUSQVARNA
IMAGES
