A neck-and-neck start to the opening MX2 race saw Geerts dicing for top-honours with his closest rival Tom Vialle. The duo swapped first position a couple of times on the opening lap before Geerts backed off in search of quicker lines.
A mature approach to the race worked in the 20-year-old’s favor. The ‘193’ put himself in a position where he was able to out-drag the championship leader uphill after executing an inside rut at the bottom of the hill to perfection on Lap-6.
Utilizing the competitive torque and power of his YZ250FM, Geerts impressively charged to an eighth race victory of the season, while his teammate, Watson, fought from outside of the top-10 to seventh.
In the second and final race of the weekend, Watson finally got his YZ250FM promptly out of the gate. He edged his teammate out of second position at turn-one and went in hunt of the early race leader Vialle. After briefly setting the fastest lap of the race on Lap-2, the '919' continued to up the pace until he went into a rut too hot and lost the front.
A quick remount saw the Brit lose three positions to Jed Beaton and Geerts followed by the Poleman Roan van de Moosedijk.
As Watson tried to regroup, Geerts started to find his speed out on the fast-paced hillside circuit. He passed Beaton with ease on Lap-8 for second position but could not do anything about the 7-second gap to the leader, Vialle.
At the flag, Geerts finished a comfortable second while Watson recovered from his fall on Lap-3 to finish fifth.
Despite finishing on the same points as the Grand Prix winner, Geerts was relegated to the second step of the podium with the overall result favouring the rider that was best placed in the final race.
Podium contender Maxime Renaux recovered from a poor start in the opening race and put in a thrilling charge through the pack from outside of the top-10 and up into third before crashing out of the position. Another crash on the same lap meant the SM Action M.C. Migliori rider would only finish tenth.
In the second and final race, Renaux had a mechanical issue but impressively nursed his bike to ninth position for ninth overall.
Geerts remains second in the MX2 Championship Standings, 21-points shy of the leader. Renaux has retained third position while Watson has moved up to sixth.
The next stop on the MXGP calendar will be in Mantova, Italy, where another three back-to-back Grands Prix will take place in the space of a week. The three events, rounds nine, ten and eleven of the series, will take place on Sunday 27th and Wednesday 30th September with the third round of the Lombardian triple-header expected to take place on October 4th.
For full results from the MX2 Grand Prix of Emilia Romagna, click here.
