Tristan Charboneau scored the first win of the year for Bud Racing Monster Energy Kawasaki in the Russian round of the FIM European EMX250 Motocross Championship at Orlyonok.
For the first time since 2012 the series was back in Russia, on a new facility overlooking the Black Sea. Teams and riders enjoyed the track and facility on Saturday, but overnight rain made conditions very demanding on Sunday.
In the top ten of the qualifying session Tristan missed the opening moto on Saturday but got his revenge on Sunday morning; he took the lead on the second lap and led throughout the remainder of the race to win by nearly five seconds. Sixth of the event, he is now eighteenth in the series standings.
Teammate Marshal Weltin had been the star of the opening moto as he moved forward from an initial seventh to secure his eventual third place before half distance in the thirty-minute race. Crashing in an uphill where he got stuck for a while in the second moto, he started the race at the back of the pack and came back seventeenth. Ninth overall, he has now moved to twelfth in the series standings.
Thierry Van Den Bosch: « It was a long trip but it was also a good weekend for us even if our riders had only one good race each! Tristan didn’t enter the first race due to a minor problem, but in the second one he won it; he never did any mistake from the first to the last lap, it was the the first time this season while leading a race. Marshal had a good opening moto, he had a good start and got a top three; he deserved such a result, as most of the time his starts are not so good and nobody see how fast he is in the last part of the races. Just a shame that he crashed early in the second race, but one more he had very good lap times. This event was a good one, we were all impressed by the location, the track and the organisation but it’s a pity that it rained so much on Sunday.”
