MXGP: Coldenhoff Takes First 2020 Overall Win as Gajser Crashes

The second race of MXGP’s first Latvian round of 2020 saw an unlikely victor, as championship favourites struggled. 

In the first turn of the second moto, Jeffrey Herlings and Antonio Cairoli both went down, the Italian twisting his knee in the process. Their incidents were somewhat exclusive, both involved multiple riders and both were typical of the first corner in Kegums – a tight, right-handed switchback. 

In theory, this presented Tim Gajser with a prime opportunity to go and take his first Grand Prix victory of the season, having already won the first moto earlier in the day. However, he had to first deal with Glenn Coldenhoff, who took the holeshot and led the opening stages with Gajser, Jeremy Seewer and Jorge Prado close behind.

The former three dropped Prado eventually, and with 10 minutes to go in the moto some mistakes from Gajser allowed Seewer to pressure the #243. 

Seeing Seewer level with him in the fast right-hander after the waves section seemed to give Gajser the hurry up, and he started to close once more on Coldenhoff. Seewer went with the Slovenian, but a mistake with six minutes left on the clock cost him time and dropped him out of the fight. 

Only half a lap later and Gajser was down in the waves section, having closed on Coldenhoff. It seemed as though Gajser was preparing a move on the GASGAS rider when he went down. It was a remarkable crash, with five seconds and two obstacles between it starting and ending. 

Equally as remarkable was the view that Gajser saw when he remounted his factory Honda, which was the bright orange jersey of Jeffrey Herlings who was now charging through the pack.

Out front, though, it was Coldenhoff’s day. The mistakes from Seewer and Gajser saw the #259 clear in the lead, and in the end he took a comfortable win in the second moto, and to overall GP win to go with it – the fourth premier class win of his career. 

Seewer was able to close the gap by the end to just over one second, but it was not enough for the factory Yamaha rider to do anything about Coldenhoff. Second place in the second moto, combined with fifth in the first, was enough for fourth overall for the #91, who is still looking for his first podium of the season.

Romain Febvre matched his moto one result in the second race, finishing third for third overall. It was a quiet, if effective and successful, first outing on the Kawasaki for the Frenchman who seems as though he could have a large part to play in the championship this year, even if not directly after missing the first two GPs through injury. 

Like Febvre, Jeffrey Herlings matched his first moto result in the second race, taking fourth. A 4-4 scorecard was enough for Herlings to take fifth overall. Not the day the 2018 champion had in mind, no doubt, but nonetheless a decent result considering where he was in turn one of the second moto. 

Tim Gajser was able to follow Herlings through the pack after his crash, although unable to anything about the #84 himself. The #243 had a fantastic chance to take the overall in Latvia one, and it coincided with a relatively bad day for Herlings. These are the sort of opportunities that you cannot afford to waste when competing against someone like Herlings, and to go from potentially taking the overall win to finishing second overall and taking only five points out of the Dutchman will be a disappointment for Gajser. Still, the reigning champion is only four points behind Herlings, so this was far from a disaster. 

Despite hitting the gate on the start, Arminas Jasikonis was able to finish sixth, benefitting partly from a nice, tight line into the first corner as well as the carnage that occurred on the outside of that opening turn. It was AJ’s second sixth place of the day, and enough for sixth overall for the Lithuanian – not a bad return to action. 

Behind Jasikonis was Jorge Prado. Despite good starts in both races, Prado was unable to keep the pace of the front runners both times. In race one this resulted in eighth, in race two the Spaniard took seventh. Nothing special, then, from the Spanish rookie, but the field is unprecedentedly stacked and this was just his third 450 Grand Prix. 

French connections completed the top 10 in the second race of the day, with Benoit Paturel in eighth ahead of Jordi Tixier and French-speaking Belgian Clement Desalle who finished 10th for 10th overall. 

Gautier Paulin was 11th. He was caught up in the carnage in the first corner, so did well to recover to just outside the top 10, although no doubt the #21 will be looking for more than the eighth overall he picked up at round three in the Grand Prix of Riga. Behind Paulin was Calvin Vlaanderen, another rider involved at turn one, then Brian Bogers, Michele Cervellin and Alessanro Lupino who completed the top 15. 

Henri Jacobi was 16th, ahead of Antonio Cairoli – complete with twisted knee. Mitchell Evans also had a second race to forget, finishing 18th for 19th overall. Karlis Sabulis and Tanel Leok completed the top 20. 

Evgeny Bobryshev was 21st, and the first rider to finish one lap down. Then came Matis Karro, Adam Sterry, Nicholas Lapucci and Arnaud Tonus who completed the top 25 – Tonus crashing mid-race, which was a shame after he had shown decent speed in the first race.

26th over the finish jump was Tom Koch, ahead of Valentin Guillod, Samuele Bernardini, Thomas Covington and Artem Guryev who rounded out the top 30 and was the final finisher. 

Ivo Monticelli did not start the race after his first race crash, whilst Shaun Simpson didn’t complete the first lap. Petar Petrov and Jeremy van Horebeek were both out on lap 11, and Anton Gole was the final retirement four laps later.