Vantaa offers a chance for Team HRC to get back on track
Vantaa, Finland is hosting the 14th round of the 2023 MXGP World Championship where Team HRC’s Ruben Fernandez and Tim Gajser will hoping to put forward a better showing than they managed in Lommel last time out.
In what is the third race in three weekends, the duo will once again be navigating a deep sand track, which held the Junior World Championships last year, but hasn’t hosted a GP for a number of years. This makes it a new track for the majority of the field and that is always an exciting proposition as the best motocross riders in the world get to learn a brand-new circuit.
For Fernandez, he’ll be hoping to build upon his Fox Holeshot from race two in Lommel and put in a strong moto to try and close the gap to third place in the championship. The Spaniard knows that sand isn’t his strongest surface but was still able to get sixth in race two and that’s the minimum he’ll be looking for this weekend.
Reigning world champion Gajser has fond memories of Finland as this was the country where he was crowned last year, in what was his fifth world title. The Slovenian missed the majority of this campaign, coming back a couple of weeks ago in Loket, Czech Republic and is looking to build himself back into race shape, so that he is ready for 2024 and an attempt at getting title number six. As such, every race is chance to test settings out in the race environment, see what works, and use that information when the results are more critical.
With no support classes scheduled to race, the weekend will use the ‘overseas timetable’ with a shorter break after the timed practice on Saturday and the warm-up on Sunday morning. This means the qualification race will take place at 16:10 local time, with the two GP-scoring motos dropping their gates at 13:15 and 16:10 on Sunday.
Ruben Fernandez 70
Lommel was obviously a tough outing, but I feel that second moto proved I do have some skill in the sand and that’s what I’ll be aiming to showcase again in Finland this weekend. It’ll be a new track for most of the riders, but I’ve seen some clips from the Junior’s last year and it looks like similar to other sand tracks we ride so it’s just going to be a case of trying to learn the layout as quickly as possible and trying to start the weekend off on the right foot.
Tim Gajser 243
I knew that getting up to speed would take a little bit of time, just because I’d been away for so long. However, I still want to perform well and Lommel wasn’t up to the standards that I set for myself. I feel like I was a little unlucky in the first moto, to run into the back of a rider who made a mistake and then obviously touching the exhaust didn’t help the situation but this is part of the sport and I tried to comeback as much as possible. Vantaa will be a similar surface I think, judging from what I’ve seen so it’ll be good to use everything we learnt from Lommel for this weekend.
Marcus Pereira de Freitas
The good thing about both Ruben and Tim is that they don’t let the negatives get them down for too long. They know if things haven’t gone well, and then they try to figure out why and then they try to make sure it doesn’t happen again. They are both a pleasure to work with, even when things didn’t go their way, but our aim now is to learn from what happened in Belgium and make sure it goes a lot better in Finland.
Rider standings
| Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Points | Team | Constructor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Prado Garcia Jorge | 61 | SPA | 665 | Red Bull GasGas Factory Racing | GasGas |
| 2 | Febvre Romain | 3 | FRA | 566 | Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP | Kawasaki |
| 3 | Seewer Jeremy | 91 | SWI | 506 | Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP Team | Yamaha |
| 4 | Fernandez Ruben | 70 | SPA | 481 | Team HRC - MXGP | Honda |
| 5 | Coldenhoff Glenn | 959 | NDL | 480 | Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP Team | Yamaha |
| 6 | Vlaanderen Calvin | 10 | NDL | 444 | Gebben Van Venrooy Yamaha Racing | Yamaha |
| 7 | Herlings Jeffrey | 84 | NDL | 386 | Red Bull KTM Factory Racing | KTM |
| 8 | Forato Alberto | 303 | ITA | 331 | SM Action Racing Team Yuasa Battery | KTM |
| 9 | Guillod Valentin | 92 | SWI | 276 | Team Ship To Cycle Honda SR Motoblouz | Honda |
| 10 | Guadagnini Mattia | 101 | ITA | 203 | Red Bull GasGas Factory Racing | GasGas |
| 11 | Renaux Maxime | 959 | FRA | 202 | Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP Team | Yamaha |
| 12 | Paturel Benoit | 6 | FRA | 190 | De Baets Yamaha MX-Team | Yamaha |
| 13 | Watson Ben | 919 | GBR | 180 | MRT Racing Team Beta | Beta |
| 14 | Evans Mitch | 43 | AUS | 167 | Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP | Kawasaki |
| 15 | Östlund Alvin | 161 | SWE | 151 | JWR Honda Racing | Honda |
| 16 | Bogers Brian | 189 | NDL | 148 | Standing Construct Honda MXGP | Honda |
| 17 | Lupino Alessandro | 77 | ITA | 131 | MRT Racing Team Beta | Beta |
| 18 | van Doninck Brent | 32 | BEL | 113 | JM Honda Racing | Honda |
| 19 | Koch Tom | 226 | GER | 110 | KTM Kosak Team | KTM |
| 20 | Spies Maximillian | 71 | GER | 86 | KTM Kosak Team | KTM |
| 21 | Van Horebeek Jeremy | 89 | BEL | 80 | Standing Construct Honda MXGP | Honda |
| 22 | Jonass Pauls | 41 | LAT | 56 | Standing Construct Honda MXGP | Honda |
| 23 | Roosiorg Hardi | 75 | EST | 52 | JWR Honda Racing | Honda |
| 24 | Gajser Tim | 243 | SLO | 48 | Team HRC - MXGP | Honda |
| 25 | Petrov Petar | BUL | 43 | |||
| 26 | Brumann Kevin | 87 | SWI | 40 | JK Racing Yamaha Active | Yamaha |
| 27 | Jacobi Henry | GER | 29 | |||
| 28 | Rubini Stephen | 38 | FRA | 27 | Team Ship To Cycle Honda SR Motoblouz | Honda |
| 29 | Stewart Lewis | AUS | 25 | |||
| 30 | Haavisto Jere | FIN | 24 | |||
| 31 | Murray Nicholas | 167 | AUS | 21 | Wildcard Rider | Husqvarna |
| 32 | Kullas Harri | FIN | 20 | |||
| 33 | Maksum Hilman | IDN | 17 | |||
| 34 | Koch Tim | 86 | GER | 15 | Wildcard Rider | Suzuki |
| 35 | Sterry Adam | 811 | GBR | 13 | Wildcard Rider | KTM |
| 36 | Kerhoas Lionel | 988 | FRA | 12 | Wildcard Rider | Husqvarna |
| 37 | Ivanov Michael | 97 | BUL | 11 | Wildcard Rider | Husqvarna |
| 38 | Leok Tanel | EST | 10 | |||
| 39 | Goupillon Pierre | 57 | FRA | 10 | Wildcard Rider | KTM |
| 40 | Dickinson Ashton | 115 | GBR | 9 | Wildcard Rider | KTM |
| 41 | Tonus Arnaud | SWI | 8 | |||
| 42 | Sileika Tomass | 637 | LAT | 7 | Wildcard Rider | GasGas |
| 43 | Monticelli Ivo | ITA | 6 | |||
| 44 | Jost Simon | 53 | SLK | 6 | Wildcard Rider | KTM |
| 45 | Scheu Mark | 991 | GER | 5 | Wildcard Rider | Husqvarna |
| 46 | Lusbo Andero | EST | 5 | |||
| 47 | Poli Joaquin | 179 | ARG | 5 | Wildcard Rider | Kawasaki |
| 48 | Mewse Conrad | 426 | GBR | 4 | Wildcard Rider | Honda |
| 49 | Alberto Paulo | POR | 4 | |||
| 50 | Kohut Tomas | 45 | CZE | 3 | Wildcard Rider | KTM |
| 51 | Purdon Tristan | 141 | RSA | 3 | Wildcard Rider | KTM |
| 52 | Gerhardsson Albin | 52 | SWE | 3 | Wildcard Rider | Husqvarna |
| 53 | Joergensen Mathias | 221 | DEN | 2 | Wildcard Rider | Yamaha |
| 54 | Koch Nico | 260 | GER | 2 | Wildcard Rider | KTM |
| 55 | Malaval Adrien | FRA | 2 | |||
| 56 | Jazdauskas Domantas | 181 | LTU | 2 | Wildcard Rider | KTM |
| 57 | Croci Simone | 771 | ITA | 2 | Wildcard Rider | Husqvarna |
| 58 | Poli Agustin | 98 | ARG | 1 | Wildcard Rider | Kawasaki |
| 59 | Van Berkel Lars | 107 | NDL | 1 | Wildcard Rider | Honda |
| 60 | Ubach Simeo | 724 | SPA | 1 | Wildcard Rider | Husqvarna |
| 61 | Jasikonis Arminas | 2 | LTU | 1 | Wildcard Rider | GasGas |
| 62 | Clochet Jimmy | 520 | FRA | 0 | Wildcard Rider | Honda |
| 63 | Outeiro Luis | 147 | POR | 0 | Wildcard Rider | Yamaha |
| 64 | Sandner Michael | 766 | AUT | 0 | Wildcard Rider | KTM |
