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Roczen and Herlings in Valence - Teenagers on fire

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News Tuesday 22th February 2010

The second major International event of the European motocross calendar occurred under bright but cloudy conditions at the hard-pack and slippery Valence circuit in France, south of Lyon and Teka Suzuki Europe World MX2’s Ken Roczen won the MX2 class with 3rd and 1st positions in the two motos, before scoring 10th in the Superfinal that saw a mix of 450 and 250 machinery.

Roczen took his works RM-Z250 to the top of the podium for his first attempt at the Valence meeting and for the first time in 2010 as Teka Suzuki World MX1’s Steve Ramon was third overall on his RM-Z450 in the MX1 division.

Still using the pre-season meetings as chances for testing and training, Roczen, and team-mate Arnaud Tonus, ran plenty of laps in the practice sessions and steadily worked on their speed at a chilly Valence. The teenage German, the sensation of the 2009 FIM MX2 World Championship, was consistently one of the top three fastest on race day. He rode to 3rd in the first race before carefully picking his lines and beating World Champion Marvin Musquin in the second. He was the third highest-ranked MX2 rider in the Superfinal.

“I am happy because I did not come here expecting to win and had also felt sick last week which meant that I could not ride much; the weather hadn’t helped us either,” the 15 year old said. “Both the bike and I are on a good level, not the level we want for Bulgaria and the first Grand Prix but we are on the way. We used this meeting for further mileage and training and it went well. It is good to see we are pretty competitive already.”

As for Jeffrey Herlings he finished sixth overall at Valence. It was his first race back after injury and because of this he was very satisfied with sixth position overall in this strong field of riders.

The weekend in Valence started with bad weather on Saturday. The track was muddy and slippery in both free practice sessions. Jeffrey took his time to get used to the track and was fifth and eight fastest in the sessions.

The organisation did a great job on Saturday night and with a little bit of help from the sun the track was a lot better on Sunday morning. Jeffrey found his rhythm straight away in the morning sessions and set the fourth fastest time in time practice.

The start of the first moto was good and Herlings went into the first corner in sixth position. In the beginning of the race he battled it out for positions. At one point he moved up to fifth position but during the race he got a lot of pressure from the riders who where riding behind him and this cost him several positions. He finally crossed the chequered flag in eight position.

In the second moto his start was even better than in the first moto and he came out of the first corner in fourth position. Herlings rode a consistent pace and held on to fourth position for quiet some laps. Than he lost a position and dropped back to fifth position. In the closing stages of the race he got a lot of pressure from the sixth place rider. The KTM Factory star gave everything he had but lost fifth position in the final lap and crossed the finish line in sixth position.

At the end of the day Jeffrey had to compete against the MX1 riders in a superfinal. This race started with some bad luck. He crashed in the first corner after the start and had to come back trough the field. With consistent lap times he passed several riders during the race and came home in nineteenth position.

Herlings next race will be the first round of the French Championship Series at Sommieres on March 6th and 7th.

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