The Kemea Yamaha Official MX Team rider Benoit Paturel is now showing the competitiveness many expected earlier in the season. Paturel didn‰Ûªt have the best of starts but he managed to pass several riders on the first lap and put in the fastest lap time of the race. Running third the first 6 laps Benoit tried to make a pass for second and made a mistake causing him to lose ground.
Paturel eventually managed his way to second where he was 11.4 seconds behind Jonass. By the checkered flag the roaring support of the home fans pushed him to close the gap to 2.1 seconds.
"I had a really bad start but I passed many riders on the first lap which was good and after I came to the back of Lieber, made a mistake, then came back again. I was close to Jonass at the end of the race. It‰Ûªs really good to ride in front of the French fans. I really think that tomorrow I will have a good battle with Seewer, Jonass, and Lieber," Paturel said.
After narrowly avoiding a downed rider on the first jump LRT KTM‰Ûªs Julien Lieber came into the second corner in 5th position and moved into second by the completion of the opening lap. Lieber had pressure from Paturel early in the race and unable to fend the frenchman off he settled into third giving him a good gate pick for both races tomorrow.
