HERLINGS AND LOMMEL

While Red Bull KTM factory rider Jeffrey Herlings probably heads to Lommel this weekend as the favourite to win the Grand Prix, it might surprise a lot of people, that the Dutchman hasn’t won at Lommel, since 2018, some six years ago. Due to missing the race injured, or like in 2021, when he arrived in Lommel after breaking his shoulder and again, shocked the World with a moto win and second overall.

However, Herlings is really in some hot form at the moment and is showing signs of his best form and that fast pace will be needed if he wants to pull back the 55-point advantage HRC rider, Tim Gajser has over him in the MXGP championship points.

“I felt like my old self from a few years ago,” Herlings said of his form in Loket last weekend. “I am still improving, and these kinds of tracks are not easy for me. I went from 5th to 1st in the first race and wanted to make another statement in the second, but I messed up; maybe a bit too much confidence. From dead last to 13th and then I hit someone’s rear wheel and had to do it again. Speed was good, fitness was good, but luck was not on my side today. So, not great, not bad and to win my 200th moto was pretty special, nobody else has reached that amount. Still seven races to go and I’m looking forward to the next one in Lommel.”

Watching Herlings race in the last four or five Grand Prix’s really gives you the opinion that he is probably the fastest rider on the track, but small mistakes, like in Loket and the opening round in Lombok have cost him big time. He could very easily have won both GPs in Indonesia and also Loket last weekend and he will need to cut out the mistakes if he wants to be World champion again in 2024.

“I am coming back, especially when I get the starts. I am nearly there. I mean all weekend the inside gate pick had a massive advantage in Lombok, where I enter the first corner in the top three and that really helped. Pure speed, I think I showed I can run with Gajser, and I can run with Prado. This was not a sand track (Loket), and we have some of those coming up. This is a normal GP track, like Maggiora and I showed the last seven GPs, if I have the start, I also have to speed to run with them. At least I am kind of coming back.”

So, now we will turn out attention to Belgium and that magnificently tough deep sand track of Lommel. Having ridden there since he was a small boy, Herlings does have three GP wins at Lommel, his first way back in 2011 and then again in 2017 and 2018. As we mentioned, injuries have seen him miss probably half a dozen GP’s in Lommel, but this year, he comes in healthy and in great form. Now all he has to do is win and pull back some of those points on series leader, Tim Gajser. A job, easier said, than done.

Photo Credit : Fullspectrum