A chilly breeze and dark skies again clouded the 2012 FIM Motocross World Championship as round ten of sixteen was played out on the shallow, bumpy and loose dirt of Kegums for the Grand Prix of Latvia.

Antonio Cairoli was able to triumph for the fifth time this season and Honda’s best representative on the CRF450R was Honda World Motocross team’s Rui Goncalves with fourth position overall in the premier MX1 class in front of 21,000 spectators.

The flat and compact track an hour outside the capital city of Riga provided a grooved, battered and relentless racing layout. The terrain was immensely demanding and aside from the bumps the slippery, hard terrain under the top layer of soil meant that Kegums was a surface that had to be respected.

Goncalves made a bright start to the weekend with an excellent launch from the gate in the qualification heat on Saturday and battled with Cairoli for pole position before finally notching a career-best with second place and second pick of slots in the gate for Sunday. The Portuguese rider was again a protagonist in the first moto of thirty-five minutes and two laps duration and after rainfall in the night had turned the track into a softer and slower challenge. The former MX2 vice champion captured third position for a best result so far in ‘12 and equalling his personal highest finish after two and a half seasons in MX1. His start in the second moto was not as efficient, but a run in the mid-top ten and a forceful push to the chequered flag was rewarded with fifth and a second top five classification.

In what was partly a ‘warm-up’ for his first home Grand Prix next weekend (there was a smattering of Russian race fans who had made the trip across the border) Evgeny Bobryshev opened the meeting with some of the fastest lap times in practice. ‘777’ then completed a lonely ride to fifth place in the opening sprint, but was less lucky in the second after hitting neutral down the start straight and then briefly slipping off the CRF450R later. ‘Bobby’ took eleventh to manage ninth in the MX1 listing by the end of the day.

Jonathan Barragan continued his quest to find past speed and form in his first season as part of the Belgian LS Honda crew. The Spaniard struggled on the sandy course and in the wake of a small injury that required attention in his native country and forbade any training laps from his Belgium base. Fighting to set an efficient pace all weekend ‘7’ was thirteenth at both times of asking for the same ranking overall.

In the FIM MX1 Motocross World Championship standings Goncalves heads the CRF450R pack with ninth place. Bobryshev is fifty-six points further back in twelfth and Barragan holds fourteenth position. With twenty-five points awarded for a race victory there is still plenty of mileage and twelve motos to run in the 2012 Grand Prix campaign.

The heat of the competitive MX2 class saw Gariboldi Esta’s Max Anstie throw his CRF250R around the jumps to sixth (with results of fourteenth and fourth) while team-mate Alexander Tonkov was sixteenth.

Round eleven of the FIM Motocross World Championship will take place at Semigorje next week for the Grand Prix of Russia and the first ever visit by the series to the venue almost 500km north-east of Moscow.

Rui Goncalves:
Race Result: 3rd / 5th - Championship position: 9th

“I’m super-happy with the way things have gone this weekend and with the way I was able to put together two consistent motos. I knew it was important to get good starts and that’s what happened in the first race. I got into second and wasn’t so far from Tony for a while. He was definitely faster and starting to pull away and in the mid part of the moto I was making a few mistakes and had a small dip. Ken passed me for second, but I was happy enough with the way I was riding because I turned it around by the end of the race. I didn’t really repeat the start for the second moto and was bumping around with some guys through the first corner. It was a little bit of a mess and I stayed focussed on not getting too close to the guys unless I had to in order to avoid the roost and filling in the radiator. I kept consistent and made the passes when I had to. I really want to thank the team for the support they gave me, my family and also my girlfriend.”

Evgeny Bobryshev:
Race Result: 5th / 11th - Championship position: 12th

“Another bad weekend with the weather; we haven’t had any luck with it this year. I didn’t get a good jump out of the gate in the first moto so I was really squeezed into the first corner. I was around eighth and worked my way up. The four guys in front of me already had a big gap, but I was happy with fifth; it was the solid result I needed to get in the bag. I was looking forward to the second moto because I thought I had a chance of the podium and had a better launch from the gate but touched together with Strijbos down the start straight and I think his boot caught my gear lever and hit the bike into neutral. The bike just died and I lost some ground. After that I made some good moves and came from almost outside the top twenty to eighth. Near the end I had a crash when the bike hit a few big square bumps and I just lost the handlebar. I got ten points, but it was not what I was hoping for. I have a big week now and I’m very busy in the days before the Russian Grand Prix. We then head to the track and I hope I can get a good feeling to be able to make a nice race for all the fans.”

Jonathan Barragan:
Race Result: 13th / 13th - Championship position: 13th

“To be honest it is quite a while since I trained in the sand or terrain similar to what we found here. It was a hard weekend. I was in Belgium two weeks ago, but hurt my knee and had to return to Spain and it meant nearly a fortnight without much training. I’m working hard but it took time to get into the rhythm with the soft stuff and I didn’t find the flow over these two days.”

2012 FIM MX1 / MX2 World Motocross Championship
Round 10: Kegums – Latvia