Slovenian former world champion Tim Gajser has secured an impressive win for Honda in his warm-up for the MXGP season.
The factory Honda team showed its strength as Gajser won the MX1 class at the Internazionali d’Italia in Riola Sardo, in Sardinia, with a dominating one-one performance, and then in what was his debut for the team, Ferruccio Zanchi rode extremely impressively to win the MX2 class after taking the second moto victory.
Gajser got off to a good start in race one with Gajser pressuring the leader.
On lap two, Gajser made his move and took over first position with the hope of pulling away. However, in what is his first race of the year, Gajser got some arm-pump and instead had to hold off a charging Frenchman Romain Febvre (Kawasaki) for the entire moto before taking the chequered flag.
In race two, once again Gajser was in a good position early on, and once again he quickly passed for the lead within a few laps. But this time, the Honda rider was able to pull well clear of the chasing pack and took the victory by almost 30 seconds.
“The first race was a real battle with Romain, especially as I got arm pump, but I was able to hold on for the win,” said Gajser afterwards.
“Race two was a lot easier after I passed Glenn (Coldenhoff) for the lead, and I was able to run some nice consistent laps and pull away for the win.
“It is always nice to get the overall and it was awesome to see Ferruccio take the win as well. A good start but of course I know there is the MXGP championship ahead of us, so the aim is to prepare for that.”
MX1 Overall:
- Tim Gajser – Team HRC – 1-1 – 50pts
- Maxime Renaux – Monster Energy Yamaha Factory – 3-2 – 42pts
- Romain Febvre – Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP – 2-4 – 40pts
- Glenn Coldenhoff – Fantic Factory Racing MXGP – 6-3 – 35pts
- Jago Geerts – Monster Energy Yamaha Factory – 4-6 – 33pts
MX2 Overall:
- Ferruccio Zanchi – Team HRC – 4-1 – 43pts
- Simon Langenfelder – Red Bull GasGas Factory Racing – 1-4 – 43pts
- Oriol Oliver – WZ Racing KTM – 3-2 – 42pts
- Quentin Prugnieres – F&H Racing Team – 5-3 – 36pts
- Hakon Fredriksen – WZ Racing KTM – 6-5 – 31pts
Photo courtesy Honda
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