MXGP Portugal: You don’t mess with Jeffrey Herlings—just ask Lucas Coenen

Never tease motorsport legends. Jeffrey Herlings clawed the MXGP Portugal GP with a very tough overtake on Lucas Coenen halfway through the second moto.

The living legend (117th GP win, more than anyone else), 32 years old, delivered a lesson to the 19-year-old new off-road phenomenon. Lucas had dominated the first race, finishing ahead of Herlings himself. But in the second, Jeffrey went wild. Despite a less-than-explosive start (fifth at the holeshot), he sliced through the pack like lightning, setting off in pursuit of Coenen who, in the meantime, had taken the lead. As the clock hit fifteen minutes out of thirty (plus two laps), it was time to settle accounts.

Herlings tried the overtake a couple of times, then in a hairpin he dove in hard, deliberately widened his line, and boxed in Lucas Coenen at the edge of the track. The rival was forced almost to a stop, and Jeffrey shot into the lead and never let it go. A textbook “block pass,” one of motocross’s fundamentals—this is a sport of hard-nosed, pure racers where contact is the norm and (more or less…) accepted with sportsmanship by the defeated.

Herlings takes a second consecutive GP win, after last week’s triumph in Montevarchi. The Honda HRC protégé, however, gains nothing in the World Championship standings: the GP of Agueda ended tied at 47 points, with Jeffrey winning the overall on the tiebreaker of the race 2 victory. So after ten GPs—mid-season—Lucas Coenen remains firmly in the lead with a 57-point margin over the chaser. Third, both in the GP and the championship, a rock-solid Romain Febvre (Kawasaki). Little glory for the Italians: Andrea Adamo (KTM) finished seventh in the GP standings, Alberto Forato (Fantic) thirteenth.

In the Under-24 World Championship, Catalan rider Guillem Farres took everything he could: a resounding win in the Saturday qualifying and a dominant double victory. The Triumph rider thus signs his second overall win, after the one in France, with five moto wins to his name. Farres capitalized in the best way on the slight dip of the phenomenal Sacha Coenen (KTM), who finished only sixth in the first outing. In the second, the Belgian limited the damage, but by day’s end he had still surrendered thirteen precious points to his pursuer. Farres is now just 32 points off the championship lead, in an MX2 where five riders are covered by only eighty points: each GP awards 60, and the road is still very long—nine GPs remain.

The best of the Italians was Ferruccio Zanchi, who finished eleventh overall with the Ducati DesmoMX 250. The surprise of the day was Latvian Janis Reisulis, second in both races and overall (40 points), right between the two main title contenders.

1. Sacha Coenen (KTM) 477 points; 2. Farres (Triumph) 445; 3. Langerfelder (KTM) 415; 4. McLellan (Triumph) 413; 5. Everts (Husqvarna) 397; 6. Reisulis J. (Yamaha) 355; 7. Valin (Kawasaki) 352; 8. Reisulis K. (Yamaha); 9. Lata (Honda) 256; 10. Karssemakers (Kawasaki) 205.

Photo: Alessio Giocoli

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