Seewer Celebrates First Podium Finish of 2020

12-08-2020

Seewer Celebrates First Podium Finish of 2020

Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP’s Jeremy Seewer celebrated the MXGP of Riga, round four of the FIM Motocross World Championship, from the second step of the podium after pairing the 22-points for second position in the final race with the 18-points scored for fourth in Race 1.

It was a return to the familiar for the Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP team with Jeremy Seewer, Arnaud Tonus and Gautier Paulin lining up in Kegums, Latvia, for the second of three Grands Prix that will take place at the ‘Zelta Zirgs’ venue in the space of seven-days.

Starting the day with another hotly contested Timed Practice session, Tonus came fractionally close to going Pole with a 1:53.985 for second position, while Paulin finished up in sixth with a 1:54.580. Seewer had a small crash but still finished inside of the top-10 with a time of 1:55.167 for ninth.

The first race of the day got off to a spectacular start for Tonus as he battled up front for the entire 30-minute duration of the race before crashing out of second position on the penultimate lap.

Behind the number ‘4’ plenty of drama unfolded starting with a first turn pile-up in which Paulin was buried at the bottom of, while Seewer did his best to avoid the chaos but lost positions in the process.

The championship protagonists were truly tested in the opening race. Seewer found himself mid-pack and in the thick of a raging battle with former World Champions Romain Febvre and Jeffrey Herlings, while Paulin did his best to fight back from last position after an additional crash with another rider.

At the flag, Seewer had to eventually settle for fourth position after chasing Herlings for the entire race, while Tonus and Paulin recovered from their crashes for ninth and 13th respectively.

In the final race of the day, Seewer and Tonus were well placed on the exit of turn-one with both YZ450FM riders inside the top-seven. With his sights set firmly on a podium finish, Seewer took no prisoners as he charged up into fourth before capitalizing on mistakes from Herlings and Antonio Cairoli to take over second position with two laps remaining.

Similar to what happened in Race 2 at the MXGP of Latvia only 48 hours ago, the ‘91’ came ever-so close to a first ever MXGP race win, finishing within 1-second of the eventual race winner Arminas Jasikonis.

With an extreme depth of talent in MXGP in 2020, the top-15 riders are evenly matched in speed which makes passing extremely difficult. Paulin managed to move up into eighth position from outside of the top-15 while Tonus got stuck in tenth on Lap-4.

In the final classification, Seewer came up a mere 3-points short of a maiden Grand Prix victory. Tonus managed a season best eighth overall while Paulin rounded out the top-10.

After matching his career best result with second overall, Seewer has moved up to fifth in the MXGP Championship Standings. Paulin remains eighth and Tonus is 12th going into round five of the series which is set to take place on Sunday 15th August here in Kegums, Latvia.

For full results from the MXGP Grand Prix of Riga, click here.

Jeremy Seewer

2nd MXGP of Riga, 40-points

“We have had some great races, also on Sunday. I feel super happy in one way... I finished strong, I had some tough battles and I recovered well from a bad start. I feel great, but on the other hand, I’ve had two races where I have been so close to winning and today, I was even close to winning the GP. So, I’ve had some good results over these days and the track has been rough, so it has been easy to make mistakes. I am really happy, my bike is working well although there are a few little things to work on and improve, which we will do and then I think I will be ready for the last one here in Latvia on Sunday.”

Arnaud Tonus

8th MXGP of Riga, 23-points

“Timed practice was really good. The times were really close. I went hard on the last lap of practice and I ended second, which helped me a lot on the start! I got a good start in the first moto and was riding really well for the whole race but made a mistake on the second to last lap. This was devastating. It was my mistake; I was a little bit under pressure and then made the mistake and ended up ninth. Devastating. In the second moto my start wasn’t great and I did the whole moto in 10th. The level is so high, like Romain Febvre was 10th and he was on the podium last weekend. It’s really hard out there, but I have to look at the positives and it was positive compared to last weekend.”

Gautier Paulin

10th MXGP of Riga, 21-points

“I broke my right finger last week, so it’s quite swollen and painful especially when I land off a jump or in the hard braking bumps. It’s not easy, but I have good lap times. My gate pick was good today, but I had a crash on the start, again with Calvin Vlaanderen and I got going again and then a rider was stalled on a jump and I hit him and then Mitch Evans jumped on me. Sometimes things just don’t go your way. I had to start from dead last and I came back to 13th. In the last moto, I just wanted to finish without any struggles or crashing. I got back to eighth but got stuck behind a rider. My feeling overall is good, I am happy with the bike, I just have some pain here and there from all of the crashes I have had. I will definitely feel it tomorrow. I like the bike the way it is, I have everything I need to play my cards and be racing with the guys upfront because I have the speed. You can see that on the lap times, I just need to avoid racing issues to have a positive result.”