Photo: CDSTalented Belgian Clément Desalle (LS Motors-Honda) will be aiming for an encore this weekend in Spain after his podium in Agueda Portugal. The Spanish GP is the sixth round of the 15-round series and will be staged at the hard-pack, fast Bellpuig track. The track in western Catalunya also welcomes the girls for the third round of the 7-round FIM women’s World championship. Bellpuig hosts the combined Spanish GP now for the eighth consecutive time, after a string of 125 GP’s in the nineties.
While the 1.6 kilometre offers plenty of spectacular jumps and step-ups under normal circumstances the hillside course has also been prone to produce mud races in recent years, most notably last season when the second race of the MX1 GP even had to be cancelled. LS Motors-Honda sports manager Marnicq Bervoets, himself a former Spanish GP winner looks ahead.
On Clément Desalle It’s obvious that Clément is still making headway week after week. He is an all-rounder who can make his marks on all sorts of tracks really, that’s how talented he is. Although he is the youngest rider (19) in the MX1 top ten he quickly makes up for his lack of experience because he rides with his head and learns fast. For the moment just Cairoli and De Dycker seem to be out of reach, but he can sets his sights on a first heat win now and with some riders out his chances of getting a first GP win are becoming more realistic as well. Whether he picks up that first win soon or at the end of the season doesn’t matter, sometimes you need a little bit of luck as well. On the other hand it will certainly fuel his motivation even more.
The will power of Elien De Winter never ceases to amaze me. She pulled off a major coup by racing at the first round of the WMX series after a dreadful back and pelvis injury just weeks before. We understood that she wanted to race there, but on the other hand we were worried that it would set her back a little as well. That’s my experience when you want to recover so fast and it’s only human! So Elien needs to be a little bit patient to build up her speed again. She’s now ninth in standings and having back-to-back GP’s will suit her fine to gain more valuable time on the bike in competitive conditions.
One step forward and two steps back that’s about the best I can describe the situation Dennis Verbruggen is in. It’s crystal clear he’s having a hard time, but we had hoped that he would have stepped up his game after the encouraging results he had in Valkenswaard. Dennis will need to dig a lot deeper to get out of this rut because not only is the MX2 level really high at the front, the depth of the field makes things even harder.
