Two more wins for Cairoli in Lierop

Antonio Cairoli continued his winning streak in MX1 at the latest round of the FIA Motocross World Championship at Lierop in the Netherlands.

The Red Bull KTM star recorded his fifth straight overall GP win, and it was the fourth consecutive event where he won both of the heats.

In the first moto the Italian rider’s team-mate Maximilian Nagl led to begin with, but Cairoli overhauled him to win by eight seconds. Nagl repeated his feat to lead again at the start of the second race but then crashed on the opening lap. Cairoli took a 15 second win, while Nagl was forced to end his race in the pits as his foot peg was broken.

Ken de Dycker benefited from Nagl’s misfortune to finish second in the second heat, which added to third from the first race gave him second place in the overall classification for the event. Suzuki rider Tanel Leok got on the podium for the first time since 2010, finishing the two races in fourth and third positions.

Fourth overall was a best result of the season for Russian Honda rider Evgeny Bobryshev. He was seventh in the first race, before improving to fourth in the second. Britain’s Shaun Simpson took fifth overall after finishing eighth and fifth in the two races.

Second in the championship standings, Clement Desalle had a difficult weekend as he contended with a hand injury. He ran fourth in the first race but slipped to sixth in the closing stages and the second race was a similar affair, holding third early on but finishing down in seventh. That gave him sixth overall, tied with Simpson for points.

Cairoli now has 76 points over Desalle with two GPs remaining, the first of which is the GP of Europe at Faenza this weekend (9 September).

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Peter Allen