Flying Frenchman Romain Febvre looked fantastic ahead of this coming weekend’s opening round of the Motocross World Championships with a two-moto victory at Lierop in The Netherlands.
Meanwhile, his factory Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP team-mate Pauls Jonass, from Latvia, showed tremendous spirit and speed to join Febvre on the podium.
The initial plan was for Febvre to race at Sommières this weekend in the team’s final preparation for next weekend’s GP opener in Argentina but inclement weather in southern France caused a last-minute cancellation of that event.
The highly-motivated KRT crew responded admirably, switching arrangements for the Frenchman to join team-mate Jonass one thousand kilometres away in the opening race of the Dutch motocross season at the iconic Lierop sand track, for many years a host to world championship racing.
The KRT duo, with Jonass narrowly ahead of Febvre, raced more than 10 seconds clear of the opposition in the first moto until the Latvian fell in the waves at half-distance and his French team-mate, too close to avoid hitting his bike, also went down.
Febvre rejoined the race with a narrow lead and immediately raced clear again at the rate of two seconds per lap to claim his first moto victory of the season by seventeen seconds.
Jonass remounted a distant third until a further slip on the penultimate lap saw him finish fourth.
Febvre took the holeshot in race two and enjoyed a thrilling race-long duel with local sand expert Glenn Coldenhoff which saw them out-distance the rest of the field by five seconds per lap; the Frenchman completed his two-moto sweep at such a high pace that he eventually lapped to sixth place.
Jonass was unfortunate at the start as he tangled with another rider and had to charge through from the back of the forty-rider pack.
Posting identical lap times to the leaders he advanced to fourth by lap nine; third place was already 20 seconds away, but the Latvian showed his fighting spirit and dug deep through the remaining six laps to claim third in moto and overall on the day with a last lap pass.
A consequential decision had already been made earlier in the week for KRT teenage talent Mathis Valin to sit out racing this weekend prior to the strenuous trip to South America for his MX2 GP debut in the wake of his two victorious warm-up races earlier this month.
Romain Febvre: “When Sommières was cancelled we had to change our plan; my thanks to the team who had to cross France through heavy traffic yesterday to be on time at Lierop!
“They also had to work on the settings of the bike as Sommières would have been hard-pack and Lierop is a sandy track. I haven’t practiced in the sand during the last two weeks, but I wanted to do another race before the first MXGP so I was happy to be here.
“I didn’t take any risks during the timed practice session; in fact, I simply rode as many laps as possible to find the good flow in the sand.
“In the first moto I got a good start in the top four, and I was second behind Pauls when he crashed in the waves section; his bike landed in front of me and I couldn’t avoid a crash! Luckily there was a good gap to Coldenhoff and I could re-start still in the lead to win that moto.
“In the second race I got the holeshot; Coldenhoff was close behind me during most to the race but I again won the moto. I’m happy to have finally won races after podiums in Hawkstone and Lacapelle. I had a great feeling and felt comfortable today; I feel ready for Argentina.”
Photo courtesy Kawasaki Europe
Find BikesportNZ.com on FACEBOOK here