Vlaanderen fights his way to the podium at Semarang

Calvin Vlaanderen has claimed his fourth podium finish of the season with a tenacious effort in both MX2 motos contested today at Semarang. The Team HRC rider was fifth in race one after an early tumble, and second in the final Indonesian encounter of the year after a brilliant last-lap move aboard his Honda CRF250RW machine.

In race one, Vlaanderen got a great start and was running in second place when he lost the front-end of his Honda and crashed at turn three on the opening lap. From last position, the 22-year-old from Cape Town began his charge to the top-ten, which he reached on lap seven. After having the better of Thomas Covington for seventh, the moto got into the final three laps and that is when Vlaanderen made the real difference, as he moved past Adam Sterry before pipping Michele Cervellin at the last jump for fifth.

Calvin was quick out of his gate also in the second moto and was running in second place for the first four laps, but was then overtaken by Thomas Covington – who quickly created a two-second separation between the two. But Vlaanderen was not done yet: by lap ten he was shadowing the American – before making a small mistake which cost him a second – and with not much left to go he made one last push which turned into a brilliant overtake on the last lap for second for the podium.