France leads, the Netherlands licks wounds after first race MXoN
After the warm-up sessions and the B-final on Sunday morning, it had started to rain in Mantova, making the track suddenly look very different from the day before during the qualifying races. The starting field was completed by the winner of the B-final, Finland, bringing the total number of countries to twenty.
Where the circumstances should be right up to Coldenhoff’s hand, The Hoff started off dramatically. He battled Tony Cairoli for the top start and both crashed. As a result, it was Arnaud Tonus who took the lead and the Let Karlis Subalis who took the lead, José Butron and Tom Vialle. Roan van de Moosdijk was away in twentieth and so both riders of Team Netherlands had a hard time fighting back.
One of the few World Cup top riders to start the race well was Thomas Kjer Olsen, who inherited third place from Tom Vialle, the best classified MX2 rider, who had fallen back to fifth. Olsen was then able to hunt for the lead, which was still in the hands of the surprisingly strong driving Sabulis. However, the Let was no match for Olsen, who soon took over.
The star of the dramatic matches for the Netherlands and Italy, for whom Mattia Gaudagnini still finished fifth, was team France. Vialle was able to compete for the win on his MX2 bike and Benoit Paturel also drove a strong race and finished eighth. This goes into the second race of the day for France with a large intention.
Olsen won ahead of Vialle and Ben Watson. For the Netherlands it is licking wounds. After one race, it has already collected more points during the full Motocross of Nations in Assen. Van de Moosdijk managed to finish in eighteenth place, while Koude Werken came in fifteenth thanks to a final sprint. nationally, the Netherlands is already on 33 points, 22 behind leader France for Belgium with 23 points. Team GB is third with 25 points.
The second race will start at 2.30 pm with Jeffrey Herlings and Glenn Coldenhoff in action for the Netherlands.