The 77th Edition of the FIM Motocross of Nations burst into life today at the Matterley Basin circuit, as the Qualifying Heats took place to decide the gate picks for tomorrow’s main races, as well as putting the top 19 teams into those races and not the dreaded B-Final!
The winners of the MXGP, MX2, and Open class races each helped their teams into the top three overall, as recently re-crowned MXGP World Champion Jorge Prado took the MXGP class win, former double World Champion Tom Vialle the MX2 Qualifying Heat, and AMA Supercross Champion Jett Lawrence easing his way to the Open class victory.
With great back-up from Ruben Fernandez, Team Spain have earned themselves the first gate pick ahead of defending Champions Team France and last-year’s runners-up Team Australia.
Behind them, Team Great Britain produced a brilliant fourth place in front of their home crowd, with Team Germany dealing brilliantly with the last pick on the gate to finish the day in fifth.
As expected, the line-up produced some epic battles between several modern-day legends of Motocross to give us a tantalising prospect for the main races tomorrow!
MXGP CLASS
Fresh from the conclusion of their year-long battle for the MXGP World Championship, Tim Gajser and Jorge Prado fired around the fast first corner at Matterley in the top two positions. Prado had been fastest in the morning Free Practice session, and immediately took the lead into the second corner, as Gajser had to deal with Australian Hunter Lawrence, Frenchman Romain Febvre, and Alberto Forato!
Immediately into the fray, wearing the unfamiliar #52 was Jeffrey Herlings, but shortly after passing Forato for fifth, the Dutchman fell in the corner after the waves and gave himself a big fightback to take on.
From the very outside of the gate due to his team drawing the final choice of start position, Ken Roczen had fought through with customary intensity to pass Forato for fifth before the end of the first lap.
As Prado streaked away out front in his familiar style, “The Bullet” was charging back through the pack. Passing Brent van Doninck on lap four, then Forato again a lap later, suddenly Herlings was under pressure from the rider many consider to be his stateside equivalent: U.S.A’s Eli Tomac! Amazingly, the highly decorated duo then caught up to Roczen, and fans were treated to three of the most famous off-road racers of the last decade battling for fifth position! Jeffrey got through with three laps to go, but Kenny was able to hold off Eli for sixth. Forato took eighth ahead of Isak Gifting and Jeremy Seewer, whose Swiss team had drawn a starting choice only one place better than Germany!
There was one last twist at the top, however, as Hunter Lawrence fell in some difficult ruts from third on the final lap, gifting Febvre third place, but Prado won by over five and a half seconds from Gajser, making it the perfect start for Team Spain!
“Happy for team Spain sitting first now in the in the classification for tomorrow so no gate pick is also important over here,” Prado said. “I had a good start was okay the guys were coming in fast from the outside but I could control it and have a good breaking into turn two and yeah truck was quite sketchy I need to say landings with so many rats it was crazy I had to be very focused all the time couldn’t afford any mistakes so I was I lost a front at one point I almost went down but for the rest it was a good good race I had fun I love the rats so went down but for the rest it was a good good race I had fun I love the rats so let’s see how it goes tomorrow”
MX2 CLASS
He may have been away from MX2 racing for the two years since he won his second world title, but Tom Vialle proved that he could still pull a great Holeshot at the start of the MX2 Ram Qualifying Heat, while behind him it was a sea of blue bikes as Cooper Webb and Max Anstie were joined by the teenage Karlis Reisulis!
However, Australian Kyle Webster was looking to impress on his European debut and made a great move through the third corner to claim second place! Sadly for him, three corners later he lost balance and fell onto an inside bank, dropping to fifteenth. A further fall and recovery saw him back to thirteenth by the finish, but Team Australia must be pleased that he has the pace to back up the Lawrence brothers in tomorrow’s main races.
Webb, on unfamiliar 250cc machinery, dropped back to an eventual seventh. Still, Anstie was on the move, holding second ahead of Kay de Wolf and Lucas Coenen, who had used Team Belgium’s first gate pick draw to recover from a poor jump at the gate and salvage a good position on the first lap.
By lap four the top two in the MX2 World Championship this year had both got past Anstie, but Vialle was already a distance ahead of them. Simon Laengenfelder had battled from the poor German start gate and was up to fifth by the halfway point. On lap seven, he pulled a stunning round-the-outside pass on Camden McLellan, who was trying to pull South Africa into a Qualifying position.
On the same lap, De Wolf crashed out of second, freeing up Coenen, the fastest in Free Practice, to tear up the circuit in pursuit of Vialle. Behind Webb, Mikkel Haarup fought through from a bad start to take eighth, with Oriol Oliver in ninth and 2023 MX2 World Champion Andrea Adamo in tenth.
Coenen mercilessly closed on Vialle in the closing laps, but the Belgian got an off-camber rut slightly wrong and fell with two laps to go, denying him the chance of improving on second. Laengenfelder made a last lap pass on Max Anstie to claim third, with De Wolf fifth ahead of McLellan.
Vialle’s win put Team France in a leading position from the first two races ahead of a surprising Germany and Spain in third.
“was excited for that,” Vialle said. “I was like, Lucas, obviously, is the man of the championship. Him and Kai are really close, and I was like, okay, I took the hard shot, and I really want to win that moto. Lucas was catching me a little bit, and then I pushed again the last three laps, and I could win so it was really nice to start the weekend like that I mean the qualification are not always… that’s not where you win but it’s really important. That’s pretty good”.
OPEN CLASS
With a late switch to the MX Open class, Australian Jett Lawrence was fastest in Free Practice ahead of Frenchman Maxime Renaux. However, few would have predicted the Holeshot being taken by Brazilian Champion Fabio Aparecido dos Santos!
The South American proved to be no pushover however, as Spanish fast starter Ruben Fernandez took nearly a lap to get past, as Lawrence and Renaux also just worked past Dos Santos before the end of the first full circulation.
Lawrence was racing with his customary style and flow, and made the pass on Fernandez for the lead, at the bottom of the biggest uphill jump on the circuit, look like a piece of cake. From there, Lawrence, Fernandez, and Renaux held station, with the battle brewing behind them!
Brit Conrad Mewse, with the locals in the crowd urging him on, had passed Glenn Coldenhoff for sixth on lap two, and closed in on Dos Santos, who had Andrea Bonacorsi already giving him hassle! The Brazilian lost both positions in the space of two corners, before an inspired Mewse got past the Italian a lap later! The Brit was relishing the technical conditions, and his fourth position put the host nation in fourth for the day!
In the end, American Aaron Plessinger fought through to sixth behind Bonacorsi, ahead of Cornelius Toendel from Norway and Slovenian Jan Pancar.
Coldenhoff had a mechanical issue drop him down the order, but The Netherlands still claimed sixth on the day ahead of Slovenia, Belgium, the USA, and Italy. After his holeshot heroics, Dos Santos finished in tenth spot, with Brazil qualifying for the main races in 16th.
Jett Lawrence did look ominously fast in this division, but the truly mouth-watering clash will come in the final race of tomorrow’s programme when all the 450 men are together!
“On the start, my holeshot button came down at the bottom,” Lawrence explained. “So I kind of messed up my start a bit. But yeah, following Fernandez for the first, what was it? Ten, five minutes, I would say. So it was good. Got a little bit of a battle the first lap, going back and forth. It was fun. The track’s pretty tricky. You definitely can’t override it. It’s fun just to kind of hop around, bounce around like a kangaroo, you could say. We got the win. So nice P3, same as last year. Let’s hope we just get some better starts for tomorrow.”
It promises to be an enthralling spectacle on a superb circuit, so don’t miss out on this incredible day’s racing at the Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations for the Chamberlain Trophy!
RAM Qualifying Race Open – Top 10 Classification:
1 Jett Lawrence (AUS, Honda), 25:03.375
2 Ruben Fernandez (ESP, Honda), +0:06.145
3 Maxime Renaux (FRA, Yamaha), +0:24.348
4 Conrad Mewse (GBR, Honda), +0:38.368
5 Andrea Bonacorsi (ITA, Yamaha), +0:45.036
6 Aaron Plessinger (USA, KTM), +0:46.068
7 Cornelius Toendel (NOR, KTM), +0:56.545
8 Jan Pancar (SLO, KTM), +0:58.669
9 Jago Geerts (BEL, Yamaha), +1:00.169
10 Fabio Aparecido dos Santos (BRA, Yamaha), +1:04.762
RAM Qualifying Race MXGP – Top 10 Classification:
1 Jorge Prado (ESP, GASGAS), 24:12.517
2 Tim Gajser (SLO, Honda), +0:05.630
3 Romain Febvre (FRA, Kawasaki), +0:21.471
4 Hunter Lawrence (AUS, Honda), +0:23.964
5 Jeffrey Herlings (NED, KTM), +0:25.547
6 Ken Roczen (GER, Suzuki), +0:31.869
7 Eli Tomac (USA, Yamaha), +0:38.105
8 Alberto Forato (ITA, Honda), +0:46.176
9 Isak Gifting (SWE, Yamaha), +1:04.284
10 Jeremy Seewer (SUI, Kawasaki), +1:05.276
RAM Qualifying Race MX2 – Top 10 Classification:
1 Tom Vialle (FRA, KTM), 24:42.952
2 Lucas Coenen (BEL, Husqvarna), +0:09.653
3 Simon Laengenfelder (GER, GASGAS), +0:16.742
4 Max Anstie (GBR, Yamaha), +0:22.311
5 Kay de Wolf (NED, Husqvarna), +0:26.730
6 Camden Mc Lellan (RSA, Triumph), +0:42.113
7 Cooper Webb (USA, Yamaha), +0:47.414
8 Mikkel Haarup (DEN, Triumph), +0:47.931
9 Oriol Oliver (ESP, KTM), +0:58.805
10 Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), +0:58.966
13 Kyle Webster (AUS, Honda)
