Second place for Gajser in qualifying at Sevlievo
Team HRC’s Tim Gajser was second at the finish line of the seventeenth qualifying race of the 2018 MXGP World Championship, after a very good performance on the elevation changes and jumps of the spectacular Bulgarian race track of Sevlievo. Gajser’s team mate Todd Waters showed good signs of improvement as he was fifteenth aboard his Honda CRF450RW machine.
Gajser had a perfect jump out of the second most-inside gate of the starting line and placed himself in second position after a few turns. For the first four laps of the moto, the two-time world champion managed to stay close to Jeffrey Herlings before losing touch from the current championship leader after a couple of small mistakes on lap five.
Despite the increased gap to the top, Gajser managed to increase his margin over third-place Clement Desalle as he consolidated his position in the second half of the encounter to cross the line almost 4.5secs ahead of the Belgian opponent.
Todd Waters had an encouraging performance today as he rounded up the top-15 after a solid ride around the spectacular Sevlievo track and was able to successfully fend off the attacks coming from the resurging Estonian Tanel Leok in the final lap.
MXGP action will resume tomorrow for the final day of the Bulgarian round, with the two races scheduled at 14:15 and 17:10 local time (GMT +3) after the traditional 15-minute warm up at 10:45.
Tim Gajser 243
Today was a good day. I felt good in all sessions and my speed was OK. I got a good start but made a couple of mistakes after a few laps and I lost contact with Jeffrey [Herlings]. In the end I had a good margin on third place so I’m quite happy with how today went. I have a good gate-pick for tomorrow, which is very important, so tomorrow I will give my best and try to get on the podium.
Todd Waters 42
My performance in free and timed practice was not ideal as it took me a while to get the flow of the track. With all the elevation changes it was hard to nail all the sections. I had the 20th gate-pick, so quite on the outside, but we did get a good start although I was still too far out. I started coming through the pack but lost a little bit of rhythm halfway through the moto; I got up to speed again in the final part and set my fastest time on the third-last lap. We are getting a little bit closer to the top-ten and this is where we want to be tomorrow.
Marcus Pereira de Freitas
We can be happy with today’s results. Tim did a great job and secured a good gate-pick tomorrow, and it was nice to see him so quick in the early stages of the moto. It was also important that he managed to keep the pace and second position throughout the race, so we’re confident we can battle for the podium. Todd showed again some signs of improvement and it’s important that these came during the race rather than in practice. He was quick towards the end as well, so we look forward to seeing what he can do tomorrow.
Qualifying race
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Rider standings
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Location Information
44, 5401 Sevlievo, Bulgaria - View in Google Maps
