Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Jeffrey Herlings continued his relentless collection of world championship points on Sunday at the latest round of the MXGP MX2 competition in Talavera, Spain with another clean 1-1 victory. Second place went to Benoit Paturel while Herlings factory teammate Pauls Jonass claimed the podium third. At the halfway mark of the season, Herlings rider has amassed 447 championship points and leads second placed Jeremy Seewer by an impressive margin of 122, teammate Jonass is in third place in the points.

MX2
Jeffrey Herlings had quite strong starts on the KTM 250 SX-F but had to chase down French rider Dylan Ferrandis in the opening laps of his two races. “I managed to overtake Ferrandis quite quickly and did what I had to do to win the moto. I pulled a pretty good start in the second moto and was top five and managed to come out on top again.” When asked if Ferrandis might give him some problems next weekend at the French races, Herlings said: “I know what to expect.”

Pauls Jonass said he had enjoyed his weekend racing and was happy with his result. “I had good battles with Paturel in the first race and with Seewer in the second, right up to the first half of the last lap when he made a mistake. I really enjoyed the races and I’m looking forward to the next GP. We need to ride a bit more on hard pack this week and physically I am quite okay.”

MXGP
It was a difficult weekend for Tony Cairoli in the MXGP class who had his share of bad luck and came away with a 5-9 moto result for overall seventh. The Italian, who had made a strong comeback from injury problems in the last three rounds on the KTM 450 SX-F said where he normally likes the Spanish track, he didn’t feel comfortable right from Saturday’s qualification race. “It was a little muddy yesterday and it’s a long time since I rode in the mud so I wasn’t feeling 100%, but I managed to come back to sixth place in qualifying, so I was happy with that, and also my speed was okay.”

Cairoli got a good start in the first moto but had some arm pump problems and said he was riding tight and was not content with his fifth place. Then things went wrong for him in the second moto. “The gate stayed up a little long and I lost concentration, I made a bit of a false start and when it came down I was last.” He still managed to move up through the pack to seventh place in the first 3-4 laps, but while trying to overtake another rider he hit some mud and went over the handlebars. “I crashed pretty hard and I had some pain in my neck and shoulders so it as a difficult race. But we will move on. From now on I will try to win races and be up front.”

Cairoli’s teammate Glenn Coldenhoff went out strong and confident in his first moto only to have a technical problem that caused him to retire from the race. “I was fired up for the second moto but then I had a bad start and I got stuck behind another rider. I tried for six laps to get past him and when I finally passed him I was completely finished. I just didn’t have the power. We’ll take the positive from the weekend away with us and I know there are some tracks coming up that I really like.”

EMX250
KTM Factory Junior, Jorge Prado had another very successful weekend to take overall second in the EMX250s with a 3-3 moto result in front of his home crowd. The Spanish teenager, who has only moved up from EMX125 this season is competing against boys who are older and bigger, and admits he needs to have more power to make a real impression in the competition. But his second place overall is already an improvement on his last result where he took the podium third. “We are improving, but I still need some more power, and I need to get stronger. At the beginning of the year I didn’t expect to be getting podiums but I thought I might make some top tens. I will train for it and I will try to do my best.” He races next weekend in Saint Jean d’Angely, France, which is a new track for him. His teammate Josiah Natzke was overall 13th.

Results MXGP Talavera de la Reina 2016
1. Tim Gajser (SLO), Honda (1-1)
2. Max Nagl (GER), Husqvarna (2-2)
3. Gautier Paulin (FRA), Honda (4-3)
4. Clement Desalle (BEL), Kawasaki (3-6)
5. Evgeny Bobryshev (RUS), Honda (6-5)

Standings MXGP 2016 after 9 of 18 rounds
1. Gajser, 385 points
2. Romain Febvre (FRA), Yamaha, 361
3. Cairoli, 338
4. Nagl, 317
5. Bobryshev, 295

Results MX2 Talavera de la Reina 2016
1. Jeffrey Herlings (NED), KTM (1-1)
2. Benoit Paturel (FRA), Yamaha (4-2)
3. Pauls Jonass (LAT), KTM (3-3)
4. Dylan Ferrandis (FRA), Kawasaki (2-5)
5. Aleksandr Tonkov (RUS), Yamaha (6-6)

Standings MX2 2016 after 9 of 18 rounds
1. Herlings, 447 points
2. Jeremy Seewer (SUI), Suzuki, 325
3. Jonass, 300
4. Paturel, 251
5. Tonkov, 240

Results EMX250 Talavera de la Reina 2016
1. Thomas Kjer Olsen (DEN), Husqvarna (1-1)
2. Jorge Prado (ESP), KTM (3-3)
3. Anton Gole (SWE), Husqvarna (7-2)
4. Bas Vaessen (NED), Suzuki (2-13)
5. Mike Stender (GER), Suzuki (5-8)
Standings EMX250 2016
 after 5 of 10 rounds
1. Kjer Olsen, 232 points
2. Hunter Lawrence (AUS), Kawasaki, 167
3. Darian Sanayei (USA), Kawasaki, 163
4. Vaessen, 140
5. Wouts, 140