Shortly after Strijbos tried to make the pass he was the one under pressure in the form of Red Bull KTM Factory Racing‰Ûªs Jeffrey Herlings. Herlings slid by the Belgian and continued forward toward the back wheel of Paulin. When Herlings caught Paulin he tried to pass him in the same corner as Strijbos did laps ago. Paulin now on the inside didn‰Ûªt budge and in turn forced the #84 to take the outside. While Paulin‰Ûªs move worked Herlings was able to make the pass later in the lap.
Meanwhile the now 9 time Motocross World Champion, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing‰Ûªs Antonio Cairoli, fell in the early stages of the race before managing to work his way forward from 20th to finish 13th.
Back up front Febvre made a mistake allowing Anstie to get alongside him, the pair jostled each other around but kept the racing clean with only centimeters between them. Febvre barely managed to hold Anstie off and with a few laps to go he again created a slight gap over the Brit. Anstie wasn‰Ûªt done though and as the crossed the finish for the penultimate time Anstie jumped in the lead as Febvre lost traction.
Anstie held the lead over Febvre for the remainder of the race and took his first MXGP win of any kind.
‰ÛÏIt was awesome to be battling with Romain Febvre, the french crowd were really rooting for him, it was a little bit similar to Switzerland, but there I was battling with Tonus," Anstie explained. "This time I was a little bit nervous the first few laps and he passed me but then I found some lines, relaxed a little bit and I thought in the last five minutes I could go a bit faster, we had a really good battle going on. I know it‰Ûªs Saturday‰Û_but a race win for me is a race win and it was really cool!‰Û
