Team France withstands the pressure of racing at home and a hungry Team USA squad to win the 69th Motocross of Nations in Ernee, France.
Team France enjoyed a dream day in front of over 50,000 crazed motocross fans at the 69th Monster Energy Motocross of Nations at Ernee, France, today, hoisting the Chamberlain Trophy that is awarded to the MXoN Champions for the second straight year, this time doing so in its home country.
The French team of newly crowned World Champion Romain Febvre, Gautier Paulin and Marvin Musquin came into the event as the odds-on favorites for the victory, but a hungry Team USA squad consisting of Justin Barcia, Jeremy Martin and Cooper Webb had hoped to spoil France’s party. For a time, it appeared as though they just might, but Febvre’s crucial second win in the final moto of a day in which he went 1-1, combined with a fifth-place finish by teammate Gautier Paulin, was enough to allow the French to repeat their victory of one year ago in Latvia.
“To win both motos in the Nations, it’s really something,” Febvre said. “You know, it has been an amazing year. It will be difficult to do the same next year. I am so happy. Team France wins again! It is good for French motocross. I cannot be happy as now. We will enjoy [the win] and make a party for sure.”
Not that Team USA had anything to be ashamed of, as Barcia, Martin and Webb put up an admirable fight on the serpentine, rough and rock-strewn Ernee circuit, leading the team standings through the first two motos but coming up just short after Barcia and Webb suffered less-than-stellar starts in the final moto despite the fact that each man had pulled the holeshot in his respective first moto. An inspired ride by New Zealand’s Ben Townley, who, in Moto 3, put together a career MXoN moto to finish second in what may be his last appearance at the event. Townley’s performance inadvertently played into France’s favor as it won the event over Team USA, 14-16 (lowest score wins), while Belgium came from behind to finish third with 56 points.
Moto 1, MXGP/MX2
France’s favorite status was clear when it topped the charts during Saturday qualifying, with Team USA second. However, the actual race day would prove to be dramatic right from the start when Barcia collected the first 1000-Euro bounty put up by Fox Racing for pulling holeshot when the gate dropped for the opening moto, which featured the MXGP and MX2 riders . Martin, meanwhile got trapped in the middle of the pack, emerging in 19th place as the field began to string out on the opening lap. The young Yamaha star quickly went to work, however, passing riders to make his way up to seventh place by the 10-minute mark.
But home country hero Musquin was the real man on the move, working his way into third place as he ran early lap times as much as 3 seconds faster than Barcia and second-placed Ben Townley of New Zealand. Musquin quickly found his way past Townley and reeled-in Barcia. Musquin may have expected a fight, but he was effectively gifted the lead when Barcia appeared to miss a shift at the bottom a downhill.
However, Barcia wasn’t about to lay down, and he locked right onto Musquin’s rear wheel at the halfway mark in the moto. What followed was an intense battle for the lead that fans of both countries had hoped for, as Barcia went for an aggressive pass to retake the lead from Musquin, only to nearly go over the bars and allow Musquin to escape once more. Barcia refused to quit, however, and he changed to smoother lines to set Musquin up for a brilliant pass on one of the uphills, using the big power of his YZ450F to move back to the front on lap eight.
Musquin once again slipped past Barcia, however, and Barcia struggled again in the same place where he had originally surrendered the lead. Barcia then appeared to step up his pace, and he put 2 seconds on Barcia. However, with Martin running sixth, just ahead of Musquin’s teammate, Gautier Paulin, Team USA and Team France were tied on points at that point in the moto.
And Barcia wasn’t through yet, as he cut back into Musquin’s advantage and powered past Musquin up the start straightaway to retake the lead once again, and it was his turn to take a 2 second lead as Musquin began to make a series of small mistakes. With Martin moving up to fifth, the USA held a tenuous two-point lead, which widened when Musquin suffered a big crash, allowing Russia’s Evgeny Bobryshev to take over second place. Musquin was clearly off rhythm as Germany’s Max Nagl also overtook him to move into third place.
And then Martin came calling with less than 5 minutes remaining in the moto, pulling up on Musquin’s rear wheel to set up a battle that would recall their season-long points war in the 2015 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship. Musquin appeared to regain his pre-crash pace at that point, however, and he easily pulled 3 seconds clear of Martin.
Barcia went on to take a well-deserved moto win—a first for him in Motocross of Nations competition—13.1 seconds ahead of fellow MXGP class rider Bobryshev, with Nagl third, another 3 seconds back. Musquin averted what could have been a disaster by France by finishing fourth and first MX2 rider, a little more than 6 seconds ahead of Martin, who completed the top five.
“It was great,” Barcia said. “We [Barcia and Musquin] both made a few mistakes. Marvin was aggressive. I got aggressive back. We’re here to do some damage. That was a fun race. They [France] are great competitors, and it is going to be a brawl until the end, for sure.”
Team USA had gotten off to the start that it wanted, leading the Motocross of Nations points standings over France, 6-11. Switzerland stood third with 19 points, followed by Estonia with 31 and Russia with 34.
Moto 2, MX2/Open
Moto 2 put the MX2 and Open riders on the track together, and it gave Team France a real chance to swing the tide back in its favor as Musquin and 2015 MXGP World Champion Romain Fevbre would be in the moto. Martin was back for Team USA in his second MX2 moto, knowing that there was still room for improvement in his game.
But the real question mark surrounded what would happen with Cooper Webb, who would contest the Open class for Team USA aboard his factory Yamaha YZ450F. After a strong third-place finish at the Grand Prix of the USA in Southern California just one week ago, he had shown the speed to race with the top European riders on the bigger bike in his own backyard. Except now he was in theirs.
Webb proved his worth to the team right off the start as he pulled the Fox holeshot from the far outside to lead the field through turn one and over the first jump. Martin also got a great start to run in the top five, just ahead of Febvre while Musquin got off the start in 12th place. Webb quickly put 2.5 seconds on Great Britain’s Dean Wilson, with Belgium’s Jeremy Van Horebeek third, Febvre fourth and Martin fifth. Musquin was sixth, another 1.5 seconds behind Martin.
Febvre got the partisan French crowd going when he moved past Van Horebeek to take over third on the second lap, and he quickly all over the back of Wilson in an attempt to take over second place. Febvre then began to come after Webb, cutting into the American’s advantage at every turn. Febvre was just 1 second behind Webb on lap five, appearing content to bide his time and see if Webb would fade and/or make a mistake. Febvre waited until the next lap to pull the trigger and shoot past Webb on the uphill to take the race lead.
That placed even more importance on the battle between Martin and Musquin, a battle which began to heat up on lap seven as Martin had difficulty finding his way around Van Horebeek. Musquin began to make some aggressive moves, showing Martin a wheel on the downhill section and into the switchbacks, but Martin held fast to the tighter inside line to hang onto the fifth position. Van Horebeek got past Wilson to take over third place, but when Martin tried to do the same, he was effectively blocked, which allowed Musquin around the outside of Martin to take over the fifth position. Musquin was able to then put Wilson between himself and Martin, putting even more pressure on the American.
Up front, Febvre was still in the lead, but he was not able to put any more than a three to five bike-length lead on Webb as they encountered lapped traffic. Webb then showed the French fans that he wasn’t going to give up without a fight, as he jumped the ruts in a right-hand corner and slid across the front of Webb to take the lead for a split second. Febvre was able to make a defensive maneuver and retake the lead, and that seemed to spur him to step up his pace and rebuild his lead to just over 2 seconds on Webb.
Webb then gave American fans a reason to wince when he high-sided in a rut and crashed. While he did not lose track position, Webb’s mistake allowed allowed Musquin to pull right onto his rear wheel, but Webb was able to recover and pull away from Musquin again.
Febvre was flawless to the finish, collecting the win by 3 seconds over Webb, with Musquin third, just under 4.5 seconds ahead of Van Horebeek, which would cinch the overall MX2 class win. But more importantly for Team France, Martin’s fifth-place finish allowed Team France back to creep back to just two points adrift of Team USA, setting up the third and final moto to be a shootout between the two countries for the Motocross of Nations win. Team USA would go into the final moto with 13 points to France’s 15.
Moto 3, MXGP/Open
With all 450cc bikes on the line, Musquin could no longer be a factor, leaving Febvre and Paulin to do battle with Barcia and Webb for the Chamberlain Trophy. As the riders lined up for the start, Barcia lined up right alongside Febvre, while further to the inside, Webb and Paulin were separated by one rider.
Sweden’s Filip Bentgsson stopped an American route of the Fox holeshot money by taking the lead through the first turn after the gate fell, with Febvre also near the front of the field. Febvre then made an aggressive move on Townley for second place and also passed Bengtsson to take the lead. Meanwhile, Americans Barcia and Webb ran 13th and 14th. Barcia quickly moved his way up to 11th by the end of lap one.
Barcia and Webb ran eighth and 10th respectively as the field began to unwind, but with Paulin running sixth, Team USA had its work cut out for it if it hoped to upset the French favorites. Barcia, Van Horebeek and Webb ran together on the track began to attack Van Horebeek in a desperate attempt to move forward just over 11 minutes into the race. Webb was able to make the pass, but Paulin made it even harder on Team USA when he passed Belgium’s Ken deDycker for fifth place, to keep France seven marks ahead of the Team USA in the moto standings (and five points in the overall standings) to that point in the race.
Barcia put a pass on Bobryshev with less than three laps remaining in the final moto, which pulled the USA even closer to France in the moto standings, which meant that if Webb could catch and pass Paulin, or if Barcia could catch Townley, the Americans could win the event. If not, the two nations would tie and France would take the win by virtue of Febvre’s two moto wins.
Barcia tightened up that points deficit when he squeezed past Karro to take over the sixth position. Webb also made the move to put the Americans together in sixth and seventh place, and just a few turns later Barcia yielded to Webb, who was clearly on a quicker pace, in the hope that Webb could make his way to Paulin and cut France’s advantage even more. However, Webb then stalled out of the pit turn, losing track position to Barcia and deDycker before he was able to restart his bike.
Barcia continued to charge, and he began to see the back of Paulin on the track ahead of him while Webb ran seventh once again. Both Americans would need to pass Paulin to give America any hope for the win. But then Paulin found his way past Dean Ferris for fourth place, again. Barcia dispatched Ferris almost as quickly. With Webb cutting the gap to Ferris from 8 second to about 4 seconds.
Barcia began to stalk Paulin with just over 4 minutes remaining in the final moto, and he used a strong charge up the hill to make the pass on the Frenchman and take over fourth place with three minutes remaining.
69th Monster Energy Motocross of Nations
Ernee, France
Results: September 27, 2015
Overall
1. France-14 points; 2. USA-16; 3. Belgium-56; 4. Estonia-66; 5. Switzerland-67; 6. Netherlands-72; 7. Australia-77; 8. New Zealand-92; 9. Germany-97; 10. Austria-103; 11. Spain-106; 12. Russia-107; 13. Sweden-108; 14. Italy-113; 15. Denmmark-118; 16. Portugal-126.
Moto 1, top 10 (MXGP/MX2): 1. Justin Barcia (USA, Yamaha), 35:41.061; 2. Evgeny Bobryshev (RUS, Honda), +0:13.103; 3. Maximilian Nagl (GER, Husqvarna), +0:16.316; 4. Marvin Musquin (FRA, KTM), +0:19.053; 5. Jeremy Martin (USA, Yamaha), +0:25.080; 6. Ben Townley (NZL, Honda), +0:36.939; 7. Gautier Paulin (FRA, Honda), +0:39.665; 8. Shaun Simpson (GBR, KTM), +1:00.544; 9. Valentin Guillod (SUI, Yamaha), +1:03.697; 10. Jeremy Seewer (SUI, Suzuki), +1:15.508.
Moto 2, top 10 (MX2/Open): 1. Romain Febvre (FRA, Yamaha), 35:38.570; 2. Cooper Webb (USA, Yamaha), +0:03.133; 3. Marvin Musquin (FRA, KTM), +0:10.889; 4. Jeremy Van Horebeek (BEL, Yamaha), +0:15.384; 5. Jeremy Martin (USA, Yamaha), +0:19.463; 6. Dean Wilson (GBR, KTM), +0:40.540; 7. Glenn Coldenhoff (NED, Suzuki), +1:05.159; 8. Tanel Leok (EST, Kawasaki), +1:14.771; 9. Pascal Rauchenecker (AUT, KTM), +1:23.712; 10. Jeremy Seewer (SUI, Suzuki), +1:25.074.
Moto 3, top 10 (MXGP/Open): 1. Romain Febvre (FRA, Yamaha), 35:29.211; 2. Ben Townley (NZL, Honda), +0:03.179; 3. Justin Barcia (USA, Yamaha), +0:04.708; 4. Evgeny Bobryshev (RUS, Honda), +0:13.119; 5. Gautier Paulin (FRA, Honda), +0:14.435; 6. Cooper Webb (USA, Yamaha), +0:15.539; 7. Jeremy Van Horebeek (BEL, Yamaha), +0:39.713; 8. Dean Wilson (GBR, KTM), +0:45.383; 9. Ken de Dycker (BEL, KTM), +0:54.619; 10. Glenn Coldenhoff (NED, Suzuki), +0:57.639.
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