Jeremy Seewer and Valentin Guillod with strong MXGP qualifying races in Frauenfeld-Gachnang - good Swiss successes in the European Championship classes too
Ruben Fernandez and Kay de Wolf were the beaming winners of the qualifying races in the two world championship classes MXGP and MX2 this Saturday at this year's two-part MXGP of Switzerland. Like the winners, the sun was shining brightly over Frauenfeld-Gachnang, giving numerous fans a foretaste of the actual race day on Easter Monday, April 21. The engines rest on Easter Sunday.
The last race of the combined practice and qualifying race day was reserved for the top class of the Motocross World Championship, the MXGP, this Saturday. The two Honda works riders from Team HRC, Spaniard Ruben Fernandez and five-time world champion and current world championship leader Tim Gajser from Slovenia, quickly dictated the action at the front and crossed the finish line in the same order. French Yamaha rider Maxime Renaux came in third, a little further back.
Swiss hopefuls Jeremy Seewer from the Aruba.it - Ducati Factory MX Team and Yamaha privateer Valentin Guillod also scored world championship points with their sixth and eighth places, which are only awarded up to tenth place in the qualifying races.
"I think that was very solid today," was Jeremy Seewer's first brief summary afterwards. He continued: "Fifth, fifth and sixth place in the practice sessions and in the qualifying race are quite okay. Of course, I would like to be in the top three, but we learned a lot about the bike again and made good adjustments. It was definitely fun, the weather was good and there were a lot of fans there. So I'm looking ahead to Monday." And what does a motocross world championship rider do in Frauenfeld on the rest day of Easter Sunday? "Rest and enjoy the sun, because Monday will be tough. Today was tough too, but Monday is when it really counts."
Arnaud Tonus in 16th place and Kevin Brumann in 18th place achieved good midfield positions, which would be points-scoring positions on the actual race day, Easter Monday, April 21 (up to 20th place).
With the aforementioned plus Ramon Keller, Nicolas Bender, Robin Scheiben, Loris Freidig and Xylian Ramella, no fewer than nine Swiss riders are competing in the top category at this year's MXGP of Switzerland. They finished 30th, 32nd, 33rd, 34th and 38th today.
Victory in the "small" MX2 world championship class for up to 23-year-olds went to reigning world champion Kay de Wolf from the Netherlands. Second and third place went to the German Simon Längenfelder and the Belgian Liam Everts respectively.
The best Swiss rider was Mike Gwerder from Stadel in 17th place, Remo Schudel finished in 23rd place and behind Alex Marques from Zurich, who is riding with a Portuguese license, the brothers Samuel, Thomas and Matthias Oechslin finished in 25th to 27th place.
The two European championship classes EMX250 and EMX125 held their first of two races today. In the junior MX2 World Championship category EMX250, Nico Greutmann from Merishausen raced to second place behind the winner August Frisk from Sweden and thus to his best result of the season. Outside the points (up to 20th place), Arthur Steffen, Noe Zumstein and Noryn Pulisini finished 23rd, 29th and 31st in the 40-rider field.
In the EMX125, Ryan Oppliger from Forel, the newcomer from the 85cc class, was close to achieving something similar to Nico Greutmann. After his lightning start, he led at the beginning and ultimately finished a good sixth. He was the only one of the three Swiss riders to qualify for the final races. The winner was the Italian Nicolo Alvisi.
Tomorrow, Easter Sunday, the engines on the Schollenholz racetrack will rest, but things will get serious again on Monday. Starting at 9:45 a.m., the European Championship classes will hold their second races. After their warm-up practice sessions in the morning, the MX2 and MXGP will take it in turns to fight for further championship points and ultimately for Grand Prix victories from 13:15.
