Kiara Fontanesi is the most successful female motorcycle racer in the history of FIM organised competition after sealing her fifth WMX World Championship after one of the most dramatic and tense finales to a season in recent memory.
The Grand Prix of Pays de Montbeliard at Villars sous Ecot brought the FIM MXGP series to a close for the nineteenth and last round of the year. The valley-set venue had been hit by bad weather in the build-up to the event and then again through showers across the weekend that turned the clayish mud and steep layout into a war-torn landscape of sticky ooze, deep swallowing ruts, large puddles and slippery ascents. Jeffrey Herlings won the premier class for the sixth time as Pauls Jonass was proclaimed MX2 World Champion but it was the WMX contest that more-than-justified the cost of an entry ticket.
Fontanesi, home favourite Livia Lancelot, Courtney Duncan and Nancy Van de Ven all travelled to the sixth WMX outing split by just five points and again heading for a last-round-last-race showdown for the fourth time in six years. A controversial first race saw Fontanesi endure the conditions to grasp victory despite an official protest from Duncan that the Italian had cut the track at the peak of a hill climb; Duncan herself had been leading the moto but had fallen at the same spot after several riders had tumbled, blocked the track and couldn’t retrieve their bikes. The results were altered Saturday evening but then changed back after video analysis cleared Fontanesi and reinstated her 25 points.
The second race Sunday morning was a belter. The conditions were worse and only two athletes finished on the same lap. Duncan mastered the mud to claim the moto and Van de Ven was set for the crown but slid to a halt on the hill and watched her dream slither back down the slope. Fontanesi paddled her way through the mud to finish third, win the overall and hoist the gold number one plate by just a single point from Lancelot who was runner-up on the day and in the series on what was her last Grand Prix.
“It is unbelievable to win five times; it is something crazy. I hoped to win one [when I started] and finally now I have five. It is amazing,” she said. “It has been a tough season and racing and fighting for the title in conditions like this morning was difficult. I just tried to finish the race: this was the important thing…to get to that finish line. I didn’t realise I had won but when they told me I almost couldn’t believe it. I’m so happy.”
“The championship is not long and with six rounds you cannot really open a gap,” she added. “Indonesia was a disaster with the rain and Assen also. You cannot really put your skills on the track and race when it is a lottery so often and just about survival. Sometimes you cannot get the results you want and that’s why with six rounds we were so close. But, finally, the one who was the most consistent won the title. I tried to get as many points as I could this year and I did it.”
The EMX250 European Championship was nowhere near as exhausting to chart and follow! But there was glory all the same for Morgan Lesiardo who bagged the points he needed in the first moto on Saturday to win the last stepping stone to Grand Prix and enjoy status as the best of his continent. “The year started so well with victory in the first round at Arco and then I changed team and it was a bit difficult to learn a new bike and I lost some points and the championship lead but I could then reach the top again in Switzerland,” the Italian said. “It was a hard weekend here but I was so happy to win the championship after that first moto. I learned a lot and gained some experience for MX2 next year.”
MXGP missed the presence of Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Clement Desalle due to a back injury and also Monster Energy DRT Kawasaki’s Tommy Searle, who sat out raceday after Qualification on Saturday through not wanting to worsen a twisted ankle. Monster Energy Yamaha’s Romain Febvre narrowly missed out on appeasing the noisy home fans. The Frenchman duelled with Tim Gajser for victory in the first moto, eventually taking second place, and then a bad start in the second meant a hard push to score fourth and tie on points with Max Anstie for the third step: the Briton capturing the trophy by virtue of his runner-up slot in the second affair.
MX2 was won by American Thomas Covington. Monster Energy DRT Kawasaki-riding countryman Darian Sanayei managed to squeeze into the top ten with ninth spot.
From both FIM World Championship classes Desalle was the highest placed of all the Monster Energy athletes with fourth in the MXGP table. The Belgian won two rounds but missed out on more crucial points in Holland and France and lost the chance of a top three ranking.
And so Grand Prix rests. The long trek from the desert of Qatar in February to the slime of France on the eve of autumn in Europe has seen typical scenes of emotion, intensity, the unexpected, excitement, pain, glory and more history made for MXGP fans, followers and participants. The international racing season will close with the 2017 Monster Energy Motocross of Nations at Matterley Basin in the UK on October 1st.
