On a special day for Team HRC’s Tim Gajser, the #243 powered his Honda CRF450RW around the Matterley Basin track to a second moto victory, just narrowly missing out on his first overall of 2019. Showing great speed all weekend, the Slovenian rider was fastest in almost every session and if it wasn’t for a mistake in the first moto when he was leading, he could easily have walked away from the MXGP of Great Britain with a 1-1 performance and a share of the championship lead. Instead, he ended up in third place in race one, second overall on the day, and still happy to have won the second race at a track that he likes so much.
After winning the qualification race yesterday, first gate pick enabled Gajser to round the first turn in good position in both races, soon moving to the front of the field with a nice display of passing. Unfortunately in race one, a crash left him remounting in third place and although he was still the fastest rider on the track, he wasn’t quite able to close the gap to the top two and make the pass that would have left the overall victory within his control. The second race followed much the same pattern, except this time Gajser was able to pull out a five second lead in the middle of the moto, before holding off a late charge by Antonio Cairoli to notch up his first race win in 2019. This now leaves him eight points off the top of the championship as the schedule now heads to Valkenswaard in the Netherlands for round three.
Jeremy van Horebeek followed up his podium performance from Argentina with a fifth overall in England. The Belgian rider rode well for his five-six moto scores and continuing to show real speed in this highly competitive MXGP class.
Unfortunately Brian Bogers was unable to make much of an impact at the British GP, suffering from arm-pump in race one, and then crashing while well-place in race two. It was a disappointing meeting for the Dutch rider, but he’ll be hoping to rebound next weekend at his home GP, in what should be much softer conditions at the sandy Valkenswaard circuit.
