A chilly sixth round of the FIM Motocross World Championship at the Eurocircuit, Valkenswaard found Yamaha duo Jeremy Van Horebeek and Brent Van Doninck in hot form for what was the Grand Prix of Europe and a packed, demanding and bumpy sandy venue south of Eindhoven. The second European stop on the nineteen-race slate of MXGP was won by Gautier Paulin but Monster Energy Yamaha factory representative Van Horebeek grabbed third place in front of many Belgian fans for his second podium result of the year. Van Doninck recovered from two tricky starts in MX2 to take the same step on the box behind Pauls Jonass and Jeremy Seewer as runner-up.
On Saturday Van Horebeek showed his fangs with a rasping performance to cut through from the top five to a clear second spot in the Qualification Heat; the Belgian rode with a rarely-seen streak of aggression and outlined his approach to the weekend. Perhaps the pacey descents made on his snowboard at the Monster Energy Media event within the confines of the Montana Snowcenter adjacent to the track on Friday helped establish an early feeling for the Grand Prix.
The 46,000 crowd (weekend figure) lapped up two fantastic scraps for second position as Paulin and then Tony Cairoli escaped with both chequered flags but up to five riders disputed the rest of the podium slots with Van Horebeek at the heart of the cut-and-thrust. #89 grabbed second at the first attempt and then had to slow in the later phases of the second race to finish fifth.
“It was a really good weekend,” he offered. “I had a stomach virus after Mexico and I thought it had gone and after a strong first moto I ‘paid in cash’ in the second with some cramps. I was feeling really good for the first fifteen minutes and thought ‘lets go for the win’ but a health problem decided different. Anyway, I’m really happy to be on the podium again. I’m consistent each weekend and at the end of the year I guess I’ll profit from that.”
“I think the fans really enjoyed our racing,” he added. “It is a tough class and you really have to fight for every position. We’ll just keep working.”
Romain Febvre (ninth) and Clement Desalle (eleventh) had their own mishaps in the sand but also took away some positive aspects of the weekend.
The blare of 250 engines was heard and the Kemea Yamaha of Brent Van Doninck was among the loudest in MX2 as the Belgium shone to third overall. Brent drilled the YZ250F to a scorecard of 5-3 for what was his best set of outings this season and his first taste of podium champagne since the Dutch Grand Prix at Assen in 2015.
“Today I woke up really motivated and I had to use a lot of energy to come back from that bad start in the first moto,” #172 recounted. “We changed the bike for the second one and the start was better and I could make my way to third. In the end I got a bit tired and Jeremy [Seewer] had another gear. I played it safe because I knew I was on the podium.”
Teammate Benoit Paturel and Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Petar Petrov secured top ten results while Adam Sterry (knee) and Vsevolod Brylyakov (shoulder) both failed to gain anything from the second moto.
MX2 saw a late entrant in the form of former multi WMX World Champion Kiara Fontanesi. The Yamaha rider was invited to deputise for brandmate Jorge Zaragoza in Holland and accepted the challenge to face ‘the men’ for the first time in her career (and before she bounces out of the 23 age limit for the class). ‘Fonta’ needed every lap of practice to dial-in the YZ250F to her liking but milked the experience of running in the Grand Prix category with lap-times that were a credit to her and the WMX division.
“Everything happened very late but it was a dream to race in a Grand Prix and being 23 years old I knew it had to be this year,” she beamed. “It was a great opportunity and I learnt a lot…even if I am finished now!” she smiled after the race.
MXGP grabs the brakes for a week before rolling into round seven in the soft soil of Kegums for the Grand Prix of Lativa in a fortnight’s time.