MXGP Insider No.15: Matterley Basin

Transmoto’s weekly web-exclusive column, the MXGP Insider, penned by David Bulmer, presented by KTM Australia. 

I have to say that the British GP was one of the best events in recent memory, and that’s not just a biased perspective from an Englishman. All throughout the weekend there was great action on the track, from the 125s to the 150s to the Women’s, 250s, MX2 and of course, the MXGP class with the British fans absolutely loving every second of it. I’ve often said one of the best things about the MXGPs is that the fans have real passion for “their” guys and that was definitely the case with all the British riders on display this weekend. Unfortunately, Adam Sterry was the only Brit to come out victorious (despite Conrad Mewse standing atop the 125 podium, to later be docked ten places for jumping on a yellow) but every single guy and gal riding under the Union Jack gave it their all.

None more so than Max Anstie, who must have been heartbroken after leading all those laps in the first MX2 race, only to lose with one lap remaining to Jeffrey Herlings who swept up out of nowhere to pass Anstie and Valentin Guillod. If you haven’t seen this race, you really need to because it is 35 minutes of epic action that every motocrosser needs to witness.

The second race was just as good as this time, Valentin Guillod was able to withstand Herlings’ pressure and take his second MX2 Overall in a row. In the press conference, Herlings gave a classic back-handed compliment by saying that he used to lap Guillod twice in one race and now he has lost twice in a row. The two do seem to get on though (unlike Ferrandis and Herlings) but it’ll still be interesting to see how this mini-feud develops once the Dutchman gets back to 100% after his crash in Spain.

In the MXGPs, Clement Desalle has to wonder what he has to do to take a win in that class as this time he was thwarted by a red flag 16 minutes into race one. He was way clear in first place when they started waving it but due to the rules that say it has to go past 66% of the race distance, a completely new start took place. Personally, I like the idea of the single-file line up that they do in SX and Desalle mentioned this in the press conference. It seems a lot fairer way of doing things and doesn’t punish those who have done well before the restart. Of course, the fact that Nagl was in roughly 18^th place at the time also played a part in how pissed off he was.

Lastly, I’d like to comment on Mike Alessi and just how weird it was to see him so far down the field. Unfortunately, I only spoke to him on Saturday before all the racing so I have no idea what he thought about things afterwards but I do hope he does a bit better in France because he deserves to do so after just jumping in mid-way through a season. Also, it might quieten down the Euro-chest thumpers who have been getting a bit too vocal since Villopoto’s demise.