Three Yamaha’s Inside the Top-Nine In Turkey

High-spirited performances from Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP’s Jeremy Van Horebeek and Wilvo Yamaha Official MXGP’s duo of Jeremy Seewer and Shaun Simpson placed all three riders inside the top-nine at the seventeenth round of the FIM Motocross World Championship, in Afyon, Turkey.

Jeremy Van Horebeek looked back to his usual self this weekend as he drove home a third-place finish in the Qualifying Race yesterday. In the opening race today, the Belgian got off to a reasonable start and was sixth at the end of Lap-1. At the end of Lap-4, he used the supreme power of his YZ450FM to rip around the outside of Glenn Coldenhoff and move inside the top-five.

After starting in eighth place, the fans that witnessed the MXGP of Turkey were treated to quite a spectacle as Wilvo Yamaha Official MXGP’s Jeremy Seewer hounded Gautier Paulin for seventh place.  With ten-minutes left on the clock the Swiss sensation flustered the Frenchman and powered his YZ450F around an outside berm to steal the position. Meanwhile, a fired up Shaun Simpson took no prisoners on his surge from twelfth and into the top-ten where he engaged in a gripping battle with his archrival, Tommy Searle. On Lap-5 the Scot managed to snatch ninth from Searle and wasted no time in airing out a 3-second gap as he closed in on Paulin, who was in eighth.

Despite having quicker lap-times than the riders that were one position in front of them, Van Horebeek was forced to settle for fifth, Seewer, seventh, and Simpson, ninth.

In the final race of the weekend, all three Official Yamaha riders were inside the top-ten off the start with Seewer being the best placed in fifth ahead of yet another YZ450F rider, Ivo Monticelli, who was followed by Van Horebeek and Simpson.

As Van Horebeek and Simpson shuffled Monticelli back to eighth, Seewer tightened his grip on fifth place as he went after Paulin for fourth. Unfortunately an opportunity to pass never arose, and he had to be content with fifth-place, which was enough for sixth overall.

Extreme heat was a factor in both races with temperatures rising above 34-degrees Celsius. As a rider that is not a fan of riding in the heat, it was Van Horebeek’s undeniable determination that saw him put enough solid laps on the board to finish sixth-place in the final race and tie on 31-points with Paulin for fourth overall, although the result for the Grand Prix demoted him to fifth, as the the better position is awarded to the rider with the best finish in the final race.

Simpson put in an encouraging ride for eighth-place in Race 2 after Coldenhoff pushed past with two-laps to go. The ’24’ happily banked 25-points for ninth overall.

The next stop will be the penultimate round of the FIM MXGP World Championship and it will take place at the Dutch TT Circuit, Assen, The Netherlands, on the weekend of September 16th.