NEWS

Take your pick: Lights go up for MXGP this weekend

Feb 202017

2017 MXGP: have your best guess. From the seven factory teams and twenty-three riders that boast Grand Prix podium experience – another nineteen having walked the highest plinth inside that desirable winners circle – the eventual victor of the opening round of the FIM Motocross World Championship at Losail in Qatar is almost impossible to call.

While athletes like Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Clement Desalle and Gautier Paulin, Max Nagl and World Champion Tim Gajser are all previous conquerors of the jumpy and spectacular floodlit circuit adjacent to the renowned MotoGP asphalt, the first appointment in nineteen this year comes from a totally clean slate. All the hours of training, sweat, blood, strains and sprains coupled with the laps, motos and tests come down to this. Thirty-eight races from nineteen Grands Prix and a calendar that runs to the end of September means that Losail is merely the opening scene in the convoluted drama that is bound to follow but the unknown and the unseen nature of the initial blast into action is what makes the Qatar so unmissable for those motocross fans ready for their TV shot of MXGP.

Among the works efforts all gunning for the premier class crown will be Kawasaki duo Desalle and Jordi Tixier (former MX2 World Champ in 2014 and now into his second year in the MXGP division), Monster Energy Yamaha’s Romain Febvre (2015 World Champ) and Jeremy Van Horebeek (the Belgian looking sharp in the ’17 Italian series where he finished runner-up) and then the might of athletes like Tony Cairoli (six times champion), Paulin, Nagl, newcomer Max Anstie, Suzuki’s Kevin Strijbos (the most experienced rider in the class), Arnaud Tonus (an MXGP rookie), Shaun Simpson (MXGP’s top-ranked Brit) and MX2 force-of-nature Jeffrey Herlings moving up to play with ‘the big boys’.

Desalle in particular will be hoping to repeat his 2013 Qatar Grand Prix win as well as erode memories of a painful race twelve months ago when he made his Kawasaki debut just two weeks after breaking his left arm. Now a year under his belt with the KX450F the Belgian – the most successful MXGP racer this decade after Cairoli with twenty GP wins since 2009 – is aiming to use his experience to make his most concerted play yet for the crown.

“My idea is to take every race in a positive way this year,” the 27 year old said. “I know what I want and I know my character so it won’t always be possible to have a good weekend, every weekend, but I will try my best so that everything goes in the best way possible: you just need to tick as many boxes as possible at a race and find that good feeling.”

Countryman Van Horebeek has looked full of purpose on the Yamaha in pre-season races and was a clear second in the three-round Italian Championship; winning the final event at Ottobiano south of Milan. #89 is also entering the series with an altered mindset, which means mastering the desert dirt and one of ‘JVH’s trickier courses in a season that will span four continents and a diverse range of terrain and tracks.

“It is a really strange circuit and of course by night,” he says. “It is not my favourite place to go because the track can be one-line but it is a new season so every track is nice! During the off-season I usually get arm-pump and nerves but this year: nothing, so it's a good sign. I’m just looking forward to it. It is a long season.”

With three times MX2 world champion Herlings pushing into MXGP, the 250cc category in 2017 becomes a macrocosm of Qatar: the run to the gold can be led by any number of athletes and particularly in a pool where only ten have tasted podium champagne and just one – Thomas Covington – knows the feeling of a Grand Prix win. Chief among the contenders on paper is Kemea Yamaha’s Benoit Paturel who ended 2016 in third place and has improved in speed and results significantly over the past two seasons. Jeremy Seewer, Pauls Jonass, Covington, Brian Bogers should all shine while the cosmopolitan nature of the class means athletes from South Africa, Scandinavia, Russia and USA (Monster Energy DRT Kawasaki duo Vsevolod Brylyakov and Darian Sanayei flying the flag for the latter nations) will form a young and unpredictable cast list.

It all begins in the desert. Qatar has hosted the MXGP opener for the past four years, and the fifth incarnation of an event that draws the attention of the international off-road motorcycling community will see light thrown onto the FIM Motocross World Championship in more ways than one.