Yamaha riders rule at Italian championship season opener

Yamaha’s main contenders for the MX1 and MX2 world titles proved to be ready for the upcoming challenge by winning both heats in both MX1 and MX2 classes at the first Italian championship race held at Montevarchi in dry, but cloudy conditions.

Yamaha Motocross Team MX1 star Joshua Coppins and Antonio Cairoli of Team Yamaha de Carli competing in MX2 had to ride hard for their moto victories, resisting pressure from several world title contenders including their team mates and other fellow Yamaha riders. Particularly in MX2 the dominance of YZ250F riders was striking with the top six in the overall day result being Yamaha mounted.

The Yamaha Motocross Team does not intend to compete in all the races of the Italian championship, but saw the race at the Montevarchi track as a good opportunity to work on the setting of their YZ450FM for hard packed tracks. Team manager Carlo Rinaldi was happy with the progress made; “The Montevarchi track is a good place to develop the hard track set up before we start the world championship. We made good progress this weekend and we hope to finalize the hard track set up next week at Valence, after which we will move up north to Belgium to start testing and develop the sand set up”.

“I’m happy to see that both riders are competitive and content with the bike as we have it now. The setting between Josh and Marc is not as different as one may expect. Of course the riders have some different requests and Marc may look more aggressive on the bike, but actually there is not much difference in how our riders work the engine and control the throttle.’

“Overall we are very confident and our preparations go smoothly. In moto one Josh had to work hard for the win with Philippaerts and Nemeth, but in race two it was easier for him. It was good to see that Josh had both hole shots. Marc isn’t far behind either, I hope we can have a good test session in Belgium to give Marc a flying start come the first race in sandy Valkenswaard, his home track.

The Yamaha Motocross Team joins most of the other top teams coming weekend at the second big international preseason race at Valence, France.

MX1 – Overall result 1. Josh Coppins, NZ – Yamaha 50 2. David Philippaerts, ITA – KTM 44 3. Kornel Nemeth, HUN – Suzuki 40 4. Marc De Reuver, HOL – Yamaha 36 5. Cedric Melotte, BEL – Aprilia 31 6. Antoine Meo, FRA – Honda 30 7. Manuel Priem, BEL – TM 26 8. Cristian Beggi, ITA – WRM 26 9. Alex Salvini, ITA – Yamaha 26 10. Andrea Bartolini, ITA – Yamaha 23

MX2 – Overall result 1. Antonio Cairoli, ITA – Yamaha 50 2. Kenneth Gundersen, NOR – Yamaha 44 3. David Guarneri, ITA – Yamaha 38 4. Manuel Monni, ITA – Yamaha 38 5. Nicolas Aubin, FRA – Yamaha 31 6. Jeremy Tarroux, FRA – Yamaha 31 7. Deny Philippaerts, ITA – Honda 26 8. Matteo Bonini, ITA – Yamaha 24 9. Filip Neugebauer, CZ – Kawasaki 24 10. Paulin Gaultier, FRA – Honda 19