MX2: Geerts Doubles Up in Kegums for Overall Win

The second MX2 race at the MXGP of Kegums proved to be something of a cold war between the two main championship contender, whilst behind them the combat was very much hand-to-hand. 

Jago Geerts was able to take his second holeshot of the season on the factory Yamaha YZ250F, and Tom Vialle was close behind right from the beginning of the moto. 

That was the way it stayed for almost the whole race. Geerts was able to maintain a gap of around two seconds for the majority of the race over Vialle, who kept him honest. It seemed that Geerts had the pace to respond whenever Vialle closed in, and with two minutes left on the clock Vialle settled for second, realising the championship situation. The mirrored results for the pair – 2-1 for Geerts and 1-2 for Vialle – would give the Belgian the overall GP win thanks to a better second race results, but the pair would finish on equal points meaning they go to round five in Turkey with the same gap of eight points that stood between them when they woke up this morning for the MXGP of Kegums. 

Vialle made a mistake on the final lap in the waves, although he was able to hold it together and finished 17 seconds behind his rival. It was not too much stress for the Frenchman, though, as he still had a fairly healthy gap behind him to third-placed Roan van de Moosdijk. 

The Dutch #39 was able to win out in a battle between himself, Maxime Renaux and Jed Beaton in the early stage. Conrad Mewse started in third, but the aforementioned trio were able to pass him by the mid-point of the race, Renaux taking third. Beaton’s pace then started to drop slightly compared to Renaux and van de Moosdijk, and the #39 had the advantage compared to the #959 and the third place he was rewarded with was enough for the Kawasaki rider to take third overall, his third podium of the Latvian rounds. 

It was also a result good enough for van de Moosdijk to overhaul Renaux in the championship, moving into third place in the points standings ahead of the Frenchman who took fourth place in the second moto for fifth overall. 

Between van de Moosdijk and Renaux in the overall was Ben Watson, who took fifth place in the second moto for a 3-5 scorecard – good enough for fourth overall, and his best result in Latvia this year.

Jed Beaton put in a clean moto and finished sixth, just missing the pace of the likes of Watson in the second half of the race. Similarly, Conrad Mewse started third but finished seventh, meaning he went 7-5 for sixth overall, one place ahead of Beaton in the GP classification – a big improvement for the Briton after a tough couple of GPs in Latvia and Riga. 

Eighth in the second race was Ruben Fernandez, his second top 10 of the day being good enough for eighth overall ahead of Alvin Ostlund in ninth overall – a more difficult afternoon for the Swiss, who finished tenth in the second moto, behind Mathys Boisrame who had another comeback ride after a difficult start to finish ninth for 10th overall.

Josh Gilbert took one of his best finishes of the season with 11th place in the second race, ahead of Mikkel Haarup who crashed early on, Petr Polak, Stephen Rubini and Hardi Roosiorg who completed the top 15. Jan Pancar was 16th, ahead of Jakub Teresak, Johannes Nermann, Enzo Toriani and Bailey Malkiewicz who completed the top 20.