Top-five qualifying result for Gajser as Bogers impresses on MXGP debut at Assen
The first day action at the TT Circuit Assen has been a positive one for Team HRC, with two-time world champion Tim Gajser able to secure a fifth-gate pick for tomorrow’s two MXGP encounters on the tricky and temporary sands of the motocross track built at the Cathedral of Speed. In front of his home crowd, Brian Bogers made his longed-for MXGP debut and was 19th at the end of his first race of the year.
Gajser had a good start to the qualifying race as he immediately placed himself in third place behind Jeffrey Herlings and Toni Cairoli. The early part of the encounter was more difficult than expected for the 22-year-old Slovenian, who could not find the right flow around the Dutch track and was eventually passed first by Glenn Coldenhoff and then by Max Anstie in a matter of two laps. Tim kept his composure and rode smartly for the remaining laps to cross the line in fifth place.
After shaking some rust off and dealing with some arm pump in free and timed practice, Brian Bogers put together an impressive performance aboard his Honda CRF450RW machine, despite the only three weeks of riding prior to his debut. The young Dutchman ran as high as 18th and was eventually 19th at the chequered flag.
Gajser and Bogers will return to the track tomorrow morning at 10:45 for the warm up session before lining up for the two, penultimate-round MXGP races at 14:15 and 17:10 local time (GMT +2).
Tim Gajser 243
Today went quite OK, and the fifth gate-pick is a good one for tomorrow. I got a good start and ran in third place, but I was struggling a bit in the first laps and then Max [Anstie] and Glenn [Coldenhoff] passed me. After that I managed to get into a decent rhythm and managed to follow them, so now I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I think the start is going to be very important because there is only one main line and that makes it hard to pass, but we’ll ride hard and do our best to be up there.
Brian Bogers 5
My first day was not too bad! In free and timed practice I actually had a lot of arm pump, but I think that’s normal – it’s the pressure that I put on myself. In the qualifying race things went much better and I managed to finish 19th, which is quite a good place where to start tomorrow. We’ll see what we can do but so far so good!
Marcus Pereira de Freitas
We are happy with what we saw today from both Tim and Brian. Tim had a solid qualifying race that turned into a promising result for tomorrow; we know this is not his favourite track so fifth place on Saturday is a very positive outcome ahead of the two races. Brian did really good all things considered and showed some great riding for being his MXGP debut and his first day of racing after almost a year. Now we hope the weather will be on our side; the team is working flawlessly as usual so we just need a good sleep to be ready for battle!
Qualifying Race
| Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Team | Constructor | Time/Gap |
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Location Information
Assen, The Netherlands - View in Google Maps
