Tony Cairoli scored a win and a fourth place during the Loket GP to take second overall for the weekend. Cairoli's second at Loket keeps the red plate on his KTM as the MX1 World Championship heads into the final three races of the season.
Cairoli scored the victory in the first moto, but encountered a few problems in the second moto. The Italian shot of the line as usual, but a few race incidents dropped him back to the middle of the pack. Cairoli was able to pick off a few riders in the closing laps to move from 7th to fourth by the finish line.
"The first race was good. I got the holeshot and made some good laps. I had very good speed and I could pull away and make a good gap," Cairoli said. "In the second I got a good jump out of the gate but I went a bit too wide in the first corner and one of the inside riders clipped my wheel. I didn't want to crash so quite a few riders got past me and I was back at around 10 or 11.
"Then another rider made a mistake going over one of the jumps and he crashed in front of me when I was on the jump and I was again back in 7 or 8th place. It was difficult to pass but at the end of the race I managed to get up to Max who was riding well in third and passed him. By then it was too late to go for the win."
There are three GPs left in the MX1 World Championship and 150 points still up for grabs. Cairoli has a pretty solid lead up at the front, with 509 points to Clement Desalle's 461. Desalle, who won the Loket GP, was able to cut down Cairoli's lead to 48 points after the weekend, but he'll need Cairoli to make a mistake in the next few races if he wants a chance at the title.
