HRC factory rider Jeffrey Herlings picked up his first win with Honda last weekend in Lierop and the five time world champion was more than happy with his performance, although he knows it’s a long season and as he is often shown, he isn’t always the fastest to get warmed up.

While he spoke about that period of warming up in a season, his 2-1 performance at home in Holland, around a very tough Lierop circuit makes a lot of people have a lot of confidence in his this coming weekend in Argentina.

Herlings, the GP win record holder at 112 victories and counting, is now with the new-look Honda HRC Petronas outfit, after sixteen years of being on Austrian machinery, and it will take some getting used to when the #84 hits a GP track on a Japanese bike for the first time.

Only two of the 31-year-old’s victories have come in Argentina, with 2018 being his only success in the MXGP class after he enjoyed a perfect MX2 weekend in 2016.

Jeffrey Herlings: This was my second race on the bike and of course I have trained a lot but racing is a whole different story. A lot of pressure, other riders around you. I ride differently than when I ride alone, when others are around me. Training is nice, but racing you have to pass riders, so many different situations. Lierop was good for that, to get a good setting to start the season.

I am of course, older, I am 31, some are 34, so I cannot complain. I know for the first race of the season, I have to warm up. It is a long championship with 57 races, 19 rounds in different places. It is a long season and I will try not to lose too many points and hopefully can race with the top guys.

In the race, Honda have more personal and I think a bigger budget than KTM. The Honda steers better and the KTM is more stable, so positives and negative, so I need to work out with my style how it goes. This is the first time in 17 years people see me on a new bike, and I think a lot of people want to see that.