Team HRC kick-off MXGP of Sweden with third and fourth in qualifying
Under clear Swedish skies, the Team HRC duo of Gautier Paulin and Evgeny Bobryshev finished third and fourth respectively today aboard the Honda CRF450RW.
The pair have been on the pace all day, finishing second and third in free practice, and fourth and fifth in a very close-fought Timed Practice, barely half a second down.
Gautier got off to a good start and soon moved into second, embroiled in a battle with championship leader Romain Febvre. Despite not feeling 100 per cent on the bike, he still finished in third place.
From the start, Bobby had a little shoulder-rubbing with Febvre, and then in the second corner got pushed wide and lost a few more place to eighth. In typical spirit though, he fought back to fourth, setting his personal best time on the last lap of the race, which at the time made him the fastest bike on track.
With third and fourth, both Team HRC riders have good starting positions for tomorrow, and with the data from today’s running will have their sights set squarely on the podium again.
Roger Harvey
“The track was quite gnarly and catching a few riders out, so the boys rode very sensible races and I’m happy enough with third and fourth from today. Tomorrow with good starts and consistent riding, we can be in a good place so I’m reasonably happy with today and we know what we need to do tomorrow to make an improvement.”
Gautier Paulin 21
“I’m not totally happy with today. We tried to go one direction for the qualifying just to be sure for the race and it was the wrong direction so I wasn’t feeling so good. I had a good start but then I was riding really tight because it was tough for me to hold the bike. It was ok for laptime today and qualifying, but to be sure for the race we tried something else and it wasn’t good, but we know where we are going so we’ll work on forward for tomorrow.”
Evgeny Bobryshev 777
“Out of the gate I just lost the balance a bit and I went to the left and I touched Febvre so we had a little squeeze on the straight, and then in the second corner I was pushed out a little bit and lost quite some places there too. But then I took a rhythm and was staying behind the guys. I didn’t want to make some mistakes because the track was quite tricky and difficult to pass. I used today just to try and get the flow for tomorrow on the hard soil because the track is really hard pack, and fourth is ok for the start tomorrow.”
Results Session
| Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Team | Constructor | Time/Gap |
|---|
Location Information
Äsperödsvägen 81, 451 34 Uddevalla, Sweden - View in Google Maps
