was Clement Desalle, with the Kawa-
saki rider holding off the Yamaha duo
of Romain Febvre and Jeremy van
Horebeek to finish third in both races.
Van Horebeek took fourth overall with
his 5-4 beating Febvre's 4-5 while
Gautier Paulin had two solid sixth
place finishes.
However, all eyes were focused on
the pair up front, and while the cham-
pionship still has 18 more rounds, it
was an important blow for Herlings
to strike as he looks to take his first
MXGP title. Obviously Cairoli is still
tied on points with Herlings, aka "The
Bullet," but this was definitely a missed
opportunity to gain a mental edge over
someone who he knows will be his
closest challenger for this campaign.
As everyone now heads back to Eu-
rope, the rest of the MXGP field will be
trying to figure out a way to get nearer
to these two riders, because other-
wise it will be a long season of battling
for the final step of the podium.
In the MX2 class, it was 2017 MX2
Champion Pauls Jonass who put out
an early marker of how well he is riding
by winning convincingly in both motos
to sweep the class 1-1. Once again,
the Red Bull KTM Team rider got two
solid starts but he did have to overtake
one of his main rivals in the first moto
before moving clear of the field.
Hunter Lawrence made the switch
to Honda in the off-season after
the withdrawal of Suzuki from world
championship action, and he made a
good start by ripping the first holeshot
of the season. However he couldn't
VOL. 55 ISSUE 9 MARCH 6, 2018 P43
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
RAY
ARCHER/KTM
IMAGES
Herlings (84) passed
defending champion
Cairoli on the last lap
of the second moto for
the overall victory.
