Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Cairoli finishes second in the MX1 GP of Portugal

53474 Nagl Cairoli start MX 220x146 Cairoli finishes second in the MX1 GP of Portugal

Cairoli gets a flyer – Image by Ray Archer

KTM factory rider Tony Cairoli rode two strong motos to finish second on the podium for the MX1 GP of Portugal in the first of two outings for the Red Bull Teka KTM Factory Team in the Iberian Peninsular.

In the first moto Cairoli found himself back at around seventh at the start of the Agueda circuit, a location where he has always performed well. He worked his way through the pack in the first half of the race to sit comfortably behind the two leaders with a handful of laps to go. In typical wily Cairoli style he carefully plotted out the best place on the track to make a move on second placed Steven Frossard then made his move with three laps to go. Cairoli then turned up the throttle and went after Clement Desalle, edging wheel to wheel close to him over the nail biter last two laps. But he ran out of time and eventually had to settle for second place.

Cairoli?s start was much better in the second moto and he was well in the running for the top place as he was several times within a wheel?s distance from the leader Desalle but again would have needed another lap to settle the moto for him. His two second places still yielded 44 championship points and kept him in the running to retain his title. After the race he said he was gaining in physical fitness after having to cut back on training to recover from injury and was still feeling confident about the remainder of the season. Cairoli has had a lot of past success on the track at Agueda and said: ?I like this track a lot. I have won four GPs and 11 motos here during my career, so actually tis one of my favorite GPs. But today it was pretty hard. It hasn?t rained here for a long time and there were a lot of strange bumps on the track where you can make a lot of mistakes.

While the GP turned out to be positive for Cairoli, his teammate Max Nagl was not so fortunate. In the first moto he had an uncharacteristic bad start and then spent a lot of time trying to overtake Rui Goncalves. The second was shaping up to be much better for the German rider but then he had a huge off on the downhill slope. The bike slid down and struck him and it was also damaged in the crash to the extent that he was unable to remount and continue the race. Max also hurt his thumb, which was badly swollen after the race. He was returning to Belgium on Monday to have it checked out by his doctor.

MX1 Results
1, Clement Desalle, Belgium, Suzuki, 25 ? 25 – 50
2, Tony Cairoli, Italy, KTM, 22 ? 22 – 44
3, Evgeny Bobryshev, Russian, Honda, 18 ? 18 – 36
4, Rui Goncalves, Portugal, Honda, 14 ? 20 – 34
5, Steven Frossard, France, Yamaha, 20 ? 14 – 34

MX1 Standings
1, Clement Desalle, Belgium, Suzuki, 249
2, Tony Cairoli, Italy, KTM, 237
3, Steven Frossard, France, Yamaha, 213
4, Max Nagl, Germany, KTM, 192
5, Evgeny Bobryshev, Russian, Honda, 177

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