On Track Off Road No.182

British base and Turkey pate
Britain & Turkey, Rnd 8 & 18 of 20, june & September
An air of decorum and professionalism existed
within Red Bull KTM for the most part
in 2018. This could be due to effective leadership,
but managing the atmosphere couldn’t
have been easy with four of the five riders in
factory orange trading positions on the track
and swiping points away from the other with
the slightest invitation. There were two notable
flash points. The first came between Herlings
and Cairoli at the British Grand Prix at Matterley
Basin and round nine of twenty. Herlings
led by 28 points and had claimed the last two
events in Latvia and Germany coming to the
UK. Cairoli was circulating quickly at one of his
favourite circuits. Their clash in the first moto
coming into the final two laps was another
jaw-dropper (only minutes beforehand Herlings
had performed one of the best overtaking
moves of the season by sweeping through
outside ruts to gain the lead).
The collision led to a tweaked knee for the
reigning champion and Cairoli could offer
previous little in the way of retaliation when
Herlings was hunting his rear wheel again in
the second moto. The degree of ‘racing incident’
validity is debatable, and the Cairoli
camp were adamant that Herlings’ tactics
were overly aggressive but the Dutchman was
unapologetic and claimed he had no intention
to hit his teammate. It was Herlings 100th GP
podium and not the cleanest won but further
underlined his willingness to usurp the champion
and rattle him at any given opportunity.
Herlings was respectful afterwards while Cairoli
didn’t offer too much in the way of comment.
“He is a nine time world champ for a reason,”
said Herlings. “You can win one title with a bit
of luck but never nine! He is one of the best
riders in the sport. He is still at the top at 32
and I don’t think he has ridden better than he
has now. Luckily I was able to pull it off today.
I didn’t want to ride the whole second moto in
his roost.”
Secondly, in MX2, the tangle between Prado
and Jonass had far more serious ramifications.
Thanks to Prado’s juvenility and Jonass’
happy demeanour the rivals were easily comfortable
in each other’s company…despite the
close to-and-fro of their 2018 battle for the red
plate. Prado’s eagerness and perhaps lack of
experience compared to the Latvian with three
more years of Grand Prix under his belt, was to
blame for their crash while disputing the lead
in Turkey, round eighteen of twenty. It was a
sizeable prang that allowed Thomas Covington
to win on the day and pretty much ended
a strong rally by Jonass to stop Prado’s walk
to the MX2 championship. The MXGP-bound
athlete stretched ligaments in his knee and
although he attempted the Dutch GP at Assen
(in the vain hope that Prado would somehow
falter in the sand and he’d be in with a last
chance at Imola) he allowed his rival to mathematically
confirm ownership of the series prior
to the Italian closer by opting for surgery.