Dutch dominance at 2019 MXoN
Team France’s five-year dominance at the annual FIM Motocross of Nations (MXoN) has ended, with the Netherlands breaking through for their first ever win.
Team Netherlands had never achieved the ultimate goal in nations’ motocross – the MXoN’s Chamberlain Trophy – before this year but they had come close, including at last year’s MXoN at Red Bud, USA, when Dutch riders won each moto. But in a scoring system that requires strong finishes from all three riders on a team, a DNF and DNS from one rider ended the Team Netherlands charge.
As strong favourites for this year’s 73rd MXoN, Team Netherlands came with a rider lineup unchanged from 2018 of Glenn Coldenhoff, Calvin Vlaanderen and Jeffrey Herlings. The Dutch also came with a home ground advantage – of sorts - as this year’s MXoN was held on a man-made track at the Assen TT circuit normally used for MotoGP and World Superbikes.
Defending champions Team France brought Gautier Paulin (a member of France’s past five MXoN-winning teams), Jordi Tixier and Maxime Renaux; the latter making his MXoN debut.
Other contender teams included Belgium (Jeremy van Horebeek, Kevin Strijbos, Jago Geerts), the USA (Jason Anderson, Zach Osborne, Justin Cooper) and Great Britain (Max Anstie, Shaun Simpson, Ben Watson).
After a fourth-place finish last year, Australia couldn’t be discounted, either. However, the Aussies would field a new squad for 2019, with Mitchell Evans, Kirk Gibbs and Hunter Lawrence all out, the latter two due to injuries. In their place, the experienced Dean Ferris would be joined by MXoN first-timers Kyle Webster and Regan Duffy.
Dark horses amongst the competing nations included Germany, Slovenia, Estonia, Spain and Switzerland, as each boasted at least one MXGP-class rider in their team.
Qualifying
In wet conditions that would be a hallmark of the 2019 MXoN weekend (28-29 September), qualifying got underway with the MXGP category heat race. Team Switzerland’s Jeremy Seewer got the holeshot in this opener, but was soon passed by Jorge Prado of Spain, with Ferris making a good start to be in the top three.
Within a few laps, Prado had fallen and Ferris was down to fifth, but Seewer was still leading from Team Slovenia’s Tim Gajser.
After a shocking start, Herlings was in eighth place by lap 8 and would improve to fifth by the finish, behind Seewer, Gajser, van Horebeek and Prado. Ferris finished in tenth.
MX2 qualifying saw Webster almost nail the holeshot, but Cooper closed the door, with Team New Zealand’s Dylan Walsh in third. As the moto wound out, Vlaanderen - tenth at the end of the opening lap - made his way into the top five and would finish second behind Cooper, with Webster third.
With the sandy track breaking down ahead of the final qualifier for the Open category, Strijbos led the field away, with Team Latvia’s Pauls Jonass in contention and Duffy inside the top five in the early stages.
Coldenhoff was soon in contention, too, handling the conditions well to be in third when Jonass took the lead. Soon after, a minor fall from Duffy dropped him from third to sixth: a position he would hold to the finish.
Easing off for the final laps, Coldenhoff finished third behind Jonass and Strijbos.
Team Belgium’s strong results across the heats meant they qualified equal first with Team Netherlands on five points and would have the pick of the gate positions for Sunday’s races. Team USA was next best (7), followed by Australia (9) and Italy (14). Poor heat results from Team France meant they finished the day behind Latvia, in equal sixth with Great Britain and Denmark.
Race 1 (MXGP + MX2)
In rain that lasted all day, the MXoN finals got underway with the combined MXGP and MX2 classes.
Ferris and Webster were the Aussie starters in this first moto, but it would be Gajser and Prado who led the field away. Ferris was among a leading pack early on that included van Horebeek and Seewer, but in the appalling conditions there were bound to be casualties. One of the first was Cooper, who collided with his team mate Anderson, effectively ending Team USA’s chances.
As Prado held a lead over Gajser for the opening laps, both Ferris and Webster remained inside the top ten, with Vlaanderen outside this group and Herlings alternately gaining and losing positions until he found his rhythm on lap 10 and started to charge through the field.
By this stage, Webster and Ferris were struggling; the former losing several places when his bike wedged in mud on lap 6, while the latter dropped nine places after a fall on lap 13.
In the final laps, Gajser held the lead from Herlings, with a late charge from the Dutchman falling just short of victory. Regardless, Herlings’s second place and Vlaanderen’s tenth gave Team Netherlands the early lead over Switzerland and France.
Ferris would finish in 15th place and Webster 23rd to put Team Australia tenth in the Nations classification.
Race 2 (MX2 + Open)
Team Estonia’s Harri Kullas scored an easy holeshot ahead of Coldenhoff and Simpson in Race 2, with Duffy and Webster inside the top fifteen on the opening lap.
A lap later, Coldenhoff would be in the lead, while a fall from Duffy put him well down the field. Webster was holding station, though, on the fringe of the top ten for most of the moto.
Jonass took second place from Simpson on lap 3, but couldn’t steal the lead from Coldenhoff, who would win by over 5 seconds. Finishing behind Jonass, Simpson and Kullas kept their nations’ chances alive, while Osborne reversed Team USA’s shocking Race 1 result with a fifth-place finish, but the injured Cooper could only manage 29th.
Team Netherlands still held the Nations’ lead after Race 2, with the eleventh and fourteenth place finishes from Duffy and Webster moving Team Australia to fifth - and the chance of a podium - as only four points separated them from second-placed France going into the final moto.
Race 3 (MXGP + Open)
The Dutch crowd no doubt had their hearts in their mouths when Herlings crashed on the opening lap, but he soon remounted, losing only a few places.
Gajser took the holeshot and had the field behind him for the opening three laps before a minor crash allowed Coldenhoff and Jonass to pass.
Clawing his way into the top ten, Herlings fell again, but he was far from alone in what became a race of attrition. Team France’s chances of a sixth successive Chamberlain Trophy ended when Tixier was out of the running early; even a podium finish evaporated when Paulins had a mechanical DNF on the penultimate lap.
Duffy was another who suffered a mechanical DNF, with Ferris also retiring, ending Team Australia’s chances of a strong finish.
At the head of the field, Coldenhoff kept his cool to take the race win, while fourth place from Herlings ensured Team Netherlands’ breakthrough victory.
The final winning tally of 18 points was a whopping 29 points clear of second-placed Belgium, with Great Britain repeating their third-place finish from last year.
“It’s been an amazing weekend and something we will never forget, that’s for sure,” Coldenhoff said after the podium presentations, with his sentiments echoed by Herlings and Vlaanderen.
France’s final race woes dropped them to fifth in the Nations standings behind Estonia, while the double DNF from the Aussies in Race 3 saw them tumble from fifth to fifteenth.
The 2020 FIM Motocross of Nations will take place in Ernèe, France, on 27 September.
