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By Adam Wheeler<br />
a set of performances that delivered<br />
a second overall GP win of<br />
2019 was emboldening.<br />
“Monday was tough,” Gajser told<br />
Lewis Phillips of MX Vice Podcasting<br />
fame of the immediate<br />
post-Mantova malaise “because<br />
you start to realise what you did<br />
and the stupid mistakes. I was<br />
trying to forget about that as soon<br />
as possible.”<br />
“It is definitely always tough when<br />
you come from a bad weekend<br />
and also the confidence goes a<br />
little bit. You start to question ‘am<br />
I good enough?’ stuff like that. I<br />
am so happy to have an amazing<br />
team behind me and also my girlfriend.<br />
She is always right there,<br />
mentally trying to say everything<br />
so that I feel better.”<br />
Riders frequently make platitudes<br />
(and rightly so) to their teams<br />
for the work and effort made to<br />
give them a platform – technical,<br />
physical, mental and maybe<br />
spiritual – from which to perform.<br />
Gasjer is frank and honest about<br />
how he leans on his support<br />
group after disappointments like<br />
Mantova, but despite all the headhelp<br />
he still has to embark on one<br />
of the hardest and loneliest sporting<br />
pursuits alone. <strong>No</strong>body else<br />
in the world knows what it is like<br />
to push that factory Honda to live<br />
with a nine times world champion<br />
and to push KTM away from the<br />
top of an MXGP podium. Tim may<br />
seem meek, almost vulnerable,<br />
in person but there is no escaping<br />
the depth of the salvage act<br />
he performed from Monday 13th<br />
May to Sunday 19th and again in<br />
France another week later.<br />
The MXGP world championship<br />
has been decided by 51, 50, 84<br />
and 43 points in the last five<br />
years and without going to the<br />
final round on each occasion.<br />
This means the graft and the<br />
foundation building of a title win<br />
has gone-on long before the final<br />
stretches of the calendar comes<br />
into play. Portugal will have been<br />
a relief for the HRC camp. A small<br />
stumble for Cairoli with his sights<br />
set on the record books but a<br />
hearty revival from his closest<br />
pursuer. It showed the kind of<br />
resolve that we as fans rarely get<br />
to see or understand about elite<br />
sportsmen: that process of how<br />
they strive behind the scenes<br />
to drag fortune back into their<br />
arsenal.<br />
Gajser did his job, realised his<br />
potential once more and satisfied<br />
his personal motivation at Agueda<br />
and then revelled in it in France…<br />
but he also unearthed some of<br />
the essence that separates people<br />
like him from people like us.
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