MXGP Insider No.16: French Disappointment

Welcome to our weekly web-exclusive column, Transmoto‘s MXGP Insider. Penned each week by Vurbmoto’s David Bulmer, the MXGP Insider will present the story-behind-the-stories of the European motocross scene.

As expected, a big crowd attended the French GP this past weekend but unfortunately they weren’t treated to the best of racing. I don’t want to get too into the whole two-stroke vs four-stroke debate, but St Jean D’Angely definitely seems to be a track designed for two-strokes. Everything was just far too easy for the top guys during the racing and as a result, most of the four races were follow-the-leader affairs. Some uncharacteristic mistakes by Antonio Cairoli at the end of each race allowed Clement Desalle to win both motos and close the points gap at the top of the MXGP championship to just 20 points, so that makes things a bit more interesting as we head into Maggiora.

Last year, Antonio Cairoli made some mistakes in front of his massive home crowd at Maggiora and he’s already proved at Arco di Trento this year that he isn’t perfect as he finished off the podium there. Obviously he’s still a massive favourite going into the race but there are chinks in his armour right now, as Desalle has won five of the last six motos.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the case in the MX2 class, where Cairoli’s teammate Jeffrey Herlings continues his post-injury domination. The Dutch youngster now seems back to full fitness and speed and is making the lives of the rest of the field very miserable indeed. Arnaud Tonus is easily the best of the rest but he still has nothing for the The Bullit when they both get good starts. The interesting storyline around both of those two right now is the fact that we still don’t know what either will be doing next year. In press conferences and personal conversations I’ve had with both, neither of them are saying anything definite in regards to 2015. Earlier in the year, there was talk that the Under 23-year-old ruling might be reversed so that riders like Tonus, Coldenhoff etc could stay down in MX2, but that now seems more and more unlikely. This means that the riders are looking out for MXGP offers or alternatively, rides in the USA.

We know Tonus has been approached by a couple of American teams, thought to be Troy Lee Designs and Pro Circuit that would allow him to stay on the 250 machine and give him the chance to race supercross. It is understood that the money isn’t as big as the MXGP offers he’s had, but the allure of SX makes up for that. Herlings has also said that he will give his decision in a month’s time but the more I speak to him and listen to his interviews, the more I think he’s going to stay in MX2 in 2015. I definitely don’t blame him for going after the record books and earning as much money as he can from the sport (and I’m sure KTM prefer this decision, also) but from a fan’s point of view, I’d much rather see him line up against Antonio Cairoli on an MXGP bike. One bit of business that was concluded was Honda signing up Tim Gajser for another two years, in what I think is a very good bit of business. The Slovenian rider certainly has World Champion potential in the MX2 class and getting his signature this early is very smart.