With the recent injury to Gautier Paulin, the HRC effort will now focus on Evgeny Bobryshev—who has in fact been the star of the team after two MXGP rounds. The Russian giant continues to show great form, and last weekend won the opening round of the Dutch Masters of Motocross.

We caught up with Bobryshev and asked him about the victory in Holland, and also about the injury to his team-mate Gautier Paulin last weekend.

Race Tech 728 90

Evgeny, you had a nice win last weekend. How did you weekend go?

Everything was fine, also the weather, the sun was shining all day. It was a nice temperature after Thailand. I won times practice, and the first moto went easy for me, and I won by half a minute and it was steady riding, and the track was nice. The second moto was tough, the track was really bumpy and the sun was low. I made a mistake, I had a gap by maybe 30 seconds, but I missed a bump because of the sun and went over the bars and I hit some metal fence and I hurt the muscles in my legs and it took me a couple of laps before the pain reduced. Then I was second and the pain went away and I passed the leader and won the moto. I had no injuries and that is the main thing.

The big Russian is 3rd in MXGP Championship points just behind his teammate Tim Gasjer.
The big Russian is 3rd in MXGP Championship points just behind his teammate Tim Gasjer.

The promoters of the Dutch championship have really put in a big effort to improve the series. How did you find it?

Yes, they have improved, they had a good mechanic pit lane like at the GP a double floor. In Holland they have a lot of rules, like in the MXGP you can refuel after the sighing lap, because our tank is a little on the limit, but in Holland you are not allowed to do that. We found that a bit strange, and my mechanic was a bit pissed about that. Apart from that the rest was really good.

 

Obviously Axel was a sand track; it must have been good preparation for the next round of the MXGP series in Valkenswaard or not?

For me any race is good preparation, it is the best training and for the condition. We had little changes on the bike for Valkenswaard, so we tested it in Axel and it worked well.

 

Did anyone else impress you over the weekend?

I didn’t really see anyone else, I didn’t battle with anyone. It was difficult to se. I don’t know what happened to Strijbos, maybe he crashed in both moto’s and Ben was riding his own pace in the first moto, not sure what happened to him in the second moto.

If the #777 can stay healthy, there's no doubt he can contend for the MXGP Championship this year.
If the #777 can stay healthy, there’s no doubt he can contend for the MXGP Championship this year.

After two rounds of the MXGP championship you must be pretty happy?

I am very happy. I was happy at the beginning of the season and I have good condition and everything is good. After two GP’s I am very happy. I did have trouble in Thailand, I couldn’t find my speed there, but I had good results, top three in Qatar and fourth in Thailand, that is really good. Now in Europe it will be a bit easier.

 

Obviously news today that Gautier crashed and injured himself. Lommel seems to be a pretty safe circuit. Why do you think riders are crashing so much in training? Is it the tracks or are the riders going too fast?

No, I think they need to prepare the tracks, there isn’t enough attention on the tracks. I was in Lommel the day before Gautier crashed, and the track was really dangerous, really deep ruts and was so easy to crash. I heard for Saturday they flattened the track, but in Lommel the track is so wet, it’s I don’t know, like really soft, so when you land the bike just gets stuck and I think that is what happened to Gautier. We need to be careful. A lot of rain in Europe and Lommel is really wet and to go on this track you need to be patient, or just go do some gym or something.

 

There was a lot of talk about the track in Thailand. What was your feeling for the track?

I couldn’t get into my rhythm on that track, the ruts were not good for me, obviously the problem was the ruts. on Saturday really deep ruts and I was fighting with the bike and my body and losing the balance in the ruts. The guys did a good job on Saturday evening and it was better on Sunday, but still big ruts and I struggled with them. It wasn’t so much the track, but the ruts and I need to spend more time on the bike riding these types of tracks.

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