MXGP Insider No.18: No Boring Weekends

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

If you break it down, round-by-round, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a boring weekend of MXGP action either on or off the track. I’m not saying the racing has always been the best, or the facilities have been spot on, but for sheer drama and talking points, the 2015 MXGPs have been hard to match.

Last weekend at Maggiora for example, you had the added drama of a monsoon sweeping through the facility on the Sunday morning (and actually on Friday as well) which completely wrecked the track conditions and turned the first motos into a real mud-fest. I’m not sure what else they could do but obviously some riders were less than complementary about the track after that race. And also the moving of the second EMX125 race caused a lot of riders to miss their flights and leave them with less than ideal preparations for their exams at school on the Monday. Yes, seriously, a lot of these kids do still have to take school exams.

As I mentioned last week, it seemed like Clement Desalle was the first domino in place and that would decide a lot of the movements of the rest of the MXGP class. Well, strong rumours out of the paddock at Maggiora suggest that he was joining Factory Kawi along with Jordi Tixier, Valentin Guillod, Tommy Searle, Shaun Simpson, Ricky Carmichael and Steve the Postman. Now running a seven-man team doesn’t sound that easy but apparently that is who the KRT guys have lined up to replace the out-going Ryan Villopoto and Tyla Rattray (who could very well be retiring at the end of 2015).

Obviously not all of them will, but the Desalle rumour did sound pretty strong, as did one about Max Anstie moving to JM Husqvarna in the MXGP class. And while it was only a rumour at that stage, the press release has since come out about Romain Febvre signing an extension to his Yamaha deal in what has to be seen as a smart bit of business given his amazing rise to prominence this season. Last year he was just “one of those guys that Herlings beat” but now he is the double-GP winner and possibly the main threat to challenge Max Nagl for the MXGP crown. Antonio Cairoli is still there of course, and if you want to see just how much of a badass he is, you need to check his Instagram feed.