The following is from Yamaha Motor Europe:
eam France won the 2016 Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations at Italy’s Maggiora Park on Sunday, with top results from Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP rider Romain Febvre and Kemea Yamaha Official MX Team rider Benoit Paturel in a dramatic three-moto combined-class competition against the world’s top motocross nations.
Febvre’s trade-teammate Jeremy Van Horebeek won the overall MX2 competition on a Yamaha YZ250F for Team Belgium and led his country to fourth overall in front of more than 50,000 fans on a bright, sunny day near the northern lakes of Italy’s Piemonte region.
Febvre won the first moto of the day, a combined heat of MXGP and MX2 riders, charging up from a start in fifth to pass Canadian Kaven Benoit and Dutch rider Glenn Coldenhoff before settling in behind home favorite Antonio Cairoli. When the Italian made a mistake on a descent and came off his bike, Romain passed quickly and never looked back, posting the fastest lap time of the day along the way. Paturel finished 14th.
Van Horebeek started alongside Febvre on a YZ250F that was tuned and engineered especially for him during the week by Monster Energy Yamaha Factory Team mechanics, and finished fifth against the mixed field, the top result for an MX2 rider.
Kemea Yamaha MX Team rider Valentin Guillod injured his right index finger in qualifying on Saturday and needed five stitches to close the wound, which left him at a disadvantage on Sunday. The rookie MXGP motocrosser took his YZ450F to 13th in the first moto but found himeslf disappointed with the result. Wilvo Standing Construct rider Alvin Östlund struggled with the mixed riding group in the first race and finished 19th. In his second outing Guillod finished 16th.
In the second race it was again Van Horebeek ahead of the MX2 field, finishing seventh to win the category, with fellow countryman Brent Van doninck of Kemea Yamaha MX Team crashing twice to finish 39th and out of the points, which left Team Belgium at a disadvantage as Paturel crossed the line 10th with his OPEN field teammate Gautier Paulin posting a top result in third to put Team France ahead in the rankings.
In the third and final heat Team USA and Team Netherlands pulled away and into a commanding 1-2 lead as Febvre started back in 13th and had to work for the full 30 minutes to catch up. In the final three laps the French rider, who won the individual MXGP classification at the 2015 Motocross of Nations on the way to claiming France’s second consecutive victory, passed Cooper Webb of Team USA in a dramatic head to head battle and then shot off after Team Great Britain’s Tommy Searle on the last lap to finish ahead of the Briton in fourth overall.
Team France won its third consecutive Motocross of Nations with a combined minimum aggregate of 29 points, ahead of Team Netherlands at 30 points and Team USA at 33 points. Team Belgium finished a close fourth with 36 points, with hosts Team Italy at fifth with 44 points, taking the tiebreaker on rankings ahead of Team Switzerland.
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