VOL. 55 ISSUE 11 MARCH 20, 2018 P47
Before the Cairoli/Herlings
battle on the track, it was the turn
of the younger KTM pairing of
Pauls Jonass and Jorge Prado in
the MX2 class. Before the season
started, it was announced that
Jorge Prado would be joining
Cairoli under the De Carli aw-
ning, while Jonass would be with
Herlings and Coldenhoff in what
was the old MX2 setup. It has al-
ready proven to be an interesting
dynamic as KTM tries their best
to keep their title rivals separated
when off the track. On the track,
though, there is nothing between
them as Jonass did everything in
his power to keep the younger
Spaniard behind him.
In the first race, Jonass man-
aged to pull away a bit after an ini-
tial early struggle, but in race two,
the gap as they crossed the line
was only 0.3 seconds with Prado
just unable to find a way to get
his wheel in front of his Latvian
counterpart. A long way behind
them was Thomas Kjer Olsen,
who has now gone 3-2-3-3 in the
four motos and sits second in the
championship. Hunter Lawrence
is still in third place, but is already
33 points off Jonass after man-
aging just a pair of sixths in the
tough conditions.
The top-placing American was
Thomas Covington, who won the
qualifying race but couldn't get a
good jump out of the gate in the
motos, ending up with 7-5 results
for fifth overall.
The championship now heads
south to Spain next weekend
to the Red Sands facility near
Valencia, for what is a brand-new
MXGP venue. However, a lot of
the riders have spent time this
winter training there (including
Herlings, but not Cairoli), so while
there are no past results to look
at, most of the riders should be
immediately comfortable with the
conditions over the weekend,
where hopefully the weather will
also be considerably warmer.
David Bulmer
MXGP
OVERALL
1. Jeffrey Herlings (KTM) 1-1
2. Antonio Cairoli (KTM) 2-2
3. Gautier Paulin (Hus) 7-3
4. Glenn Coldenhoff (KTM) 5-4
5. Romain Febvre (Yam) 6-5
MX2
OVERALL
1. Pauls Jonass (KTM) 1-1
2. Jorge Prado (KTM) 2-2
3. Thomas Kjer Olsen (Hus) 3-3
4. Conrad Mewse (KTM) 5-4
5. Thomas Covington (Hus) 7-5
Pauls Jonass
is already
running away
with the MX2
class.
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
RAY
ARCHER/KTM
IMAGES
Thomas Covington
won Saturday's MX2
qualifier but slow
starts relegated the
American to fifth
overall on Sunday.
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
JUAN
PABLO
ACEVEDO/HUSQVARNA
IMAGES
