Team HRC’s Mitch Evans finished in fourth place in the second moto, posting the fastest laptime of the race but his ninth in Moto 1 saw him finish seventh overall.
Mitch Evans came extremely close to making it a Honda one-two as the Queenslander fought for 35 minutes to score his best race finish since round one in Great Britain. Sitting in third at the halfway point of the moto, the #43 tried his best to follow his teammate home, even posting the fastest lap of the race, but it wasn’t quite to be as he had to settle for nine-four scores for seventh overall.
It was still another encouraging step for the rider in his first season in the MXGP class as he comes back a shoulder injury sustained in round two of the series, and with a third race on Sunday before three rounds in Mantova at a track he won at in pre-season, he will be looking for even more improvement in the coming weeks.
“Very good day which started off well in timed practice, where I was in first position for awhile in the session. That was a cool feeling but I knew the racing was the main focus. In the first moto I got a really good start but struggled a bit with arm-pump due to probably pushing too hard at the beginning. I wasn’t riding myself and ended up in ninth which I wasn’t too happy about, but I put it behind me for moto two.
“I didn’t get quite such a good start in race two but I kept pushing the whole moto and made some passes and I was battling with the front guys, which was very satisfying to be back up there and running their pace. I was really happy with how that race went, finishing fourth and now I’m looking forward to getting some more top fives when we race again on Sunday,” finished Mitch Evans.
Honda 114 Motorsports’ Bailey Malkiewicz and Nathan Crawford finished 19th and 21st respectively.