Two falls, the hook with Coldenhoff, the damaged footrest. For Tim Gajser the world is turned upside down. Jorge Prado now has a 7-point advantage over the Slovenian for the grand finale in Spain. MX2 “standard”, Lucas Coenen wins, Kay de Wolf easy leader
September 15, 2024
Shanghai, China, September 15. The Italian dawn is the darkness of Tim Gajser’s Chinese Grand Prix. It is not the typhoon expected for Monday, it is “just” a heat in which everything goes wrong, in which the crystal of that position that the Slovenian had managed to build in 18 Grand Prix, from Argentina to Tierra del Fuego to Turkey, is broken. People will say that this is sport, they will cry out about the injustice of the twist. Of course, it is all true, and yet once again it is difficult to reasonably explain how the world can go upside down so suddenly, so ferociously and coldly mercilessly. The dramas of life are not the same as the dramas of sport, however the intensity of the emotions is, perhaps wrongly, comparable.
Race 1 of a hyper-condensed program, which concentrates all the action on Sunday morning in Shanghai of the Grand Prix of Beauty of the Eastern Valley. The regenerated neo-Ducati Off-Off Road Jeremy Seewer, Kawasaki, Ruben Fernandez, Honda, starts well, takes the lead, Jorge Prado holds, Tim Gajser hooks the wheel of Glenn Coldenhoff, Fantic, and his drama begins. It will be war between Fernandez and Roman Febvre, Kawasaki, but at the end of the first lap Gajser is 14th. All to be done again. The red plate starts chasing, climbs back up, but on the 12th lap the drama is complete. Another fall, the left footpeg damaged, the obligation to stop in the pits for repairs. Gajser can resume and finish, 17th, but just in time to see Febvre win the heat and Jorge Prado, Red Bull KTM, finish second and take the lead in the world championship standings. The last one in Cozar, Spain, will be even more heated, but it’s not exactly how we imagined we would arrive at the epochal duel at the end of the Championship.
After the skid, the world straightens out in Race 2 and Prado plays his part very well. The Spaniard runs in the lead from the first to the last of the 19 laps. Prado wins the Shanghai Grand Prix ahead of Febvre and Herlings, and consolidates his fragile position, as Race 1 demonstrated. Guadagnini and Bonacorsi in the top 10, Forato 16th, Seewer at zero, good Fernandez fourth and a fine Pancar fifth. Now Prado is back in possession of the red plate, and goes to the final duel of the third home Grand Prix with a seven-point advantage. May it be, that time, the last heat of an excellent Championship, to settle the capital question.
MX2 is absolutely “standard”. It is a new double by Lucas Coenen, under the control of the two-time second Kay de Wolf. The train moved by Team Husqvarna Nestaan proceeds without any jolts at the head of the cadet category convoy. In Race 1 we witness the “monotonous” hegemony of Luca Coenen, in the lead from the first to the last lap, in Race 2 the exploit of “Carlo Alberto” Reisulis, Yamaha, in command for the first 11 laps, and the blaze of Liam Everts, who is injured on the second lap, one would say in a rather serious way, remaining under the bike after the collision with Lucas Coenen. We will update you.
Destination Cozar, Spain, last weekend of September, for the last of the 2024 World Cup.
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