Giraud/Mucenieks supreme in French GP; Vanluchene/Van den Boogaart new World Cup leaders
Valentin Giraud and Elvijs Mucenieks were supreme during the second sidecar cross GP of 2018, held in Castelnau de Levis, France. In front of the home crowd, the French/Latvian combination twice took first place in the heats with force majeure. Vanluchene/Van den Boogaart finished second twice and therefore also second in the day's results and are the new leaders in the standings for the 2018 World Sidecar Cross Championship. Bax, who broke his collarbone two weeks ago in Oss, scored well considering the circumstances with a fifth and third place in the heats and thus came third in the day's results.
The qualifications on Saturday caused a lot of noise around team Willemsen/Bax. In any case, Willemsen still suffered a lot from his nasty crash a week earlier in Valkenswaard and was not really helped by the race management. Once again, just like in Oss, they received a penalty of 10 places immediately after the qualifying heats because the race director had seen that yellow flags had not been respected. Angered by what Willemsen/Bax thought was a very unfair punishment, there was no other option than to take first place in the last change. But once again, as in Oss, they had to start from the second row. Closhe/Van Hal and Sanders/Haller also had to rely on the last change and managed to qualify through this last straw. All teams from the Benelux were qualified after Saturday.
That would promise a beautiful Sunday for all those Belgian and Dutch teams, but before the fence would even come down for the first time, team Veldman unfortunately had to cancel. The day before, baking player Siebe van der Putten had suffered an ankle injury and unfortunately they were unable to defend fourth place in the World Cup standings. A big setback for the team as they will now have to urgently find a replacement for Van der Putten, who will be out of action for a number of weeks.
Under a light gray cloud cover that had brought some small showers, the first World Cup heat started at 13.15 pm. Vanluchene was the first to leave, with Giraud close behind and Van Werven/Mans surprisingly third.
Giraud/Mucenieks immediately increased the pressure on leaders Vanluchene/Van den Boogaart and they had to capitulate to the French/Latvian combination in the third round.
To the cheers of the home crowd, Giraud then displayed a pace that the competition will fear for the rest of the season. First place was taken at the finish with a half minute lead.
Vanluchene had a nice gap behind him and actually rode into second place solo after 30 minutes and 2 rounds of sidecar crosses.
Van Werven was able to hold on to third place until halfway, but was overtaken by the Estonian Varik, who is now finally showing his potential with the Latvian top baking player Daiders. They rode into third place unthreatened after having gone ahead of Van Werven and having put up a fierce battle with initially team Brown and team Dierckens, with just behind them a group with Kunnas, Cermak, Willemsen, Hermans, Bax, Sanders and Wilkinson.
Brown then dropped out after five laps with mechanical problems and Dierckens/Rostingt also suffered the same fate a few minutes later. This cleared the way for Bax/Stupelis who were now fourth to pass Van Werven for third place. However, Bax still had a lot of trouble with his arm, mainly because he had not trained properly for two weeks due to his injury, and was unable to stop the up-and-coming Hermans/Musset, who also received the necessary support from the home crowd because of the sympathetic French player. Hermans/Musset finished fourth in this heat and Bax/Stupelis settled for fifth place, followed by Willemsen, who was also plagued by physical discomfort, and who, withstanding the pain from the second row of the grid, scored a deserved sixth place together with his racing driver Robbie Bax. Sanders came in at seven, who had managed to get rid of the Czech Cermak at eight and the British Wilkinson/Chamberlain at nine. Van Werven/Mans eventually finished tenth and scored a nice number of points in this World Cup heat. The Flemish nestor Santermans finished twelfth. With the exception of one combination, the Benelux teams unfortunately did not score any points. The one combination that did do that was Keuben/Rietman who scored 16e and thus scored a number of points after previously experiencing perilous adventures. First of all, the engine broke down on the way to Castelnauhome quiet and with the help of a van from team Vanluchene, driven by a mechanic from team Hermans, they were able to register just two minutes before time on Saturday morning. They then found temporary accommodation with team Van Werven on Saturday until the repaired truck finally arrived at the paddock on Saturday evening.
On Sunday everything seemed to be a piece of cake, but along the way, baking artist Rietman, in particular, experienced a nasty moment when he fell out of the box! Fortunately, rider Justin Keuben realized this in time and we were able to continue fairly quickly on our way to 5 very hard-fought World Championship points.
The second heat saw another great adventure for team Keuben/Rietman. They were suddenly fourth from the front at the start! However, it turned out to be a story with a less ending because due to technical errors the finish was ultimately not reached.
Giraud/Mucenieks actually saw the finish, how hot! Now the men had a holeshot just in front of Vanluchene, Wilkinson, Keuben, Dierckens, Willemsen and Varik with Cermak and Bax behind them. Hermans was only the last to leave because the engine stalled and had to drive a huge catch-up race.
Giraud again rode a tight pace and had already taken off his helmet at the finish when second man Vanluchene entered. Third came Bax who, after a solid match and scoring a good number of points, was satisfied with his performance, plagued by his injury.
Willemsen came fourth. However, they were once again awarded a penalty! This time because they produced just a little too much sound. As a result, the very disappointed Willemsen/Bax fell from fourth to ninth place in the results of heat 2.
Fourth place fell to the strong riding Britt Wilkinson, followed by Dierckens in fifth place, who was just able to keep the Cermak brothers breathing down their necks back in sixth place.
Hermans ultimately finished seventh because they had managed to overtake no fewer than 22 other combinations! A major achievement by the young Hermans together with his French co-pilot Nicolas Musset. At eighth we saw Varik come in and Willemsen was forced to finish ninth. The Finnish Kunnas brothers took tenth place after a reasonable heat.
Van Werven then finished eleventh and in twelfth place we saw Santermans come in. Closhe/Van Hal now managed to score points with a 16e place.
Sanders was in a fierce battle for place twelve with Santermans in the final phase and experienced a hard crash that shattered the radiator and this meant the end of the story for Sanders/Haller. The Dutch baking player Nick Maas, on the side of the German Blank, also failed to score any points in this second heat, just like in the first heat, in which Maas even fell out of the box to his own anger.
The other teams from the Benelux also did not score any points.
The next sidecar cross Grand Prix is this weekend where the third GP will be held in Spain. The World Cup standings are still thrillingly exciting, with Vanluchene's Belgian team now leading the list. However, the combination in form seems to be Giraud/Mucenieks, but they may face some more resistance under the Spanish sun from team Bax, which has recovered better in a week, as well as team Willemsen.
Daily results GP Castelnau de Levis, France:
- 02. Valentin Giraud-Elvijs Mucenieks FR-LV WHT-Husqvarna 50
- 09. Marvin Vanluchene-Ben van den Boogaart BE-NL VMC-Zabel 44
- 82. Etienne Bax-Kaspars Stupelis NL-LV WSP-Zabel 36
- 15. Kert Varik-Lauris Daiders EE-LV WSP-Husqvarna 33
- 05. Koen Hermans-Nicolas Musset NL-FR WSP-Zabel 32
- 08. Brett Wilkinson-Daniel Chamberlain GB-GB WSP-Zabel 30
- 07. Tomas Cermak-Ondrej Cermak CZ-CZ WSP-MEGA 28
- 111. Daniel Willemsen-Robbie Bax NL-NL WSP-Zabel 27
- 12. Gert van Werven-Jens Mans NL-BE WSP-TM 21
- 14. Riku Kunnas-Lari Kunnas FI-FI WSP-KTM 19
- 19. Kristof Santermans-Kostas Beleckas BE-LT WSP-Zabel 18
- 11. Davy Sanders-Andres Haller BE-DE WSP-Zabel 17
- 85. Arne Dierckens-Luc Rostingt BE-FR WSP-Zabel 16
- 24. Marco Heinzer-Ruedi Betschart CH-CH VMC-KTM 16
- 20. Guennady Auvray-Rodolphe Lebreton FR-FR WSP-Zabel 13
- 38. Zeno Compalati-Lemuel Ravera IT-IT WSP-Zabel 12
- 30. Benjamin Weiss-Patrick Schneider AT-AT VMC-Zabel 11
- 21. Justin Keuben-Dion Rietman NL-NL VMC-Zabel 5
- 16. Andreas Clohse-Han van Hal BE-NL WSP-KTM 4
- 56. Fabian Hoffman-Cornelius Dorig CH-CH WSP-KTM
- 89. Remo Inderbitzin-Martin Betschart CH-CH VMC-Yamaha 3
- 49. Joachim Reimann-Philipp Reimann DE-DE WSP-Zabel 3
- 23. Nick Janssens-Glenn Janssens BE-BE VMC-Zabel 0
- 36. Tobias Blank-Nick Maas DE-NL VMC-Zabel 0
- 58. Kevin Cordeau-Dylan Cordeau FR-FR WSP-Zabel 0
- 54. Pavel Hroch-Martin Hroch CZ-CZ WSP-Zabel 0
- 113. Patrick Girardin-Johnny Badaire FR-FR WSP/Husqvarna 0
- 04. Stuart Brown-Joe Millard GB-GB WSP-Husqvarna 0
- 110. Jake Brown/Zac Snell GB-GB WSP-Zabel 0
- 124. Romaric Chanteloup-Josselyn Chanteloup FR-FR WSP/KTM 0
Standings 2018 World Championship Sidecar Cross after two GPs:
- 9 Marvin Vanluchene-Ben van den Boogaart BE-NL VMC-Zabel 84
- 2 Valentin Giraud-Elvijs Mucenieks FR-LV WHT-Husqvarna 75
- 5 Koen Hermans-Nicolas Musset NL-FR WSP-Zabel 75
- 111 Daniel Willemsen-Robbie Bax NL-NL WSP-Zabel 71
- 15 Kert Varik-Lauris Daiders EE-LV WSP-Husqvarna 57
- 8 Brett Wilkinson-Daniel Chamberlain GB-GB WSP-Zabel 53
- 85 Arne Dierckens-Luc Rostingt BE-FR WSP-Zabel 45
- 14 Riku Kunnas-Lari Kunnas FI-FI WSP-KTM 42
- 82 Etienne Bax-Kaspars Stupelis NL-LV WSP-Zabel 36
- 19 Kristof Santermans-Kostas Beleckas BE-LT WSP-Zabel 36
- 10 Julian Veldman-Siebe van der Putten NL-NL WHT-Husqvarna 34
- 30 Benjamin Weiss-Patrick Schneider AT-AT VMC-Zabel 31
- 11 Davy Sanders-Andres Haller BE-DE WSP-Zabel 30
- 7 Tomas Cermak-Ondrej Cermak CZ-CZ WSP-MEGA 28
- 112 Jarno van den Boomen-Kenny van Gaalen NL-NL WSP-Zabel 25
- 24 Marco Heinzer-Ruedi Betschart CH-CH VMC-KTM 24
- 12 Gert van Werven-Jens Mans NL-BE WSP-TM 22
- 4 Stuart Brown-Joe Millard GB-GB WSP-Husqvarna 16
- 16 Andreas Clohse-Han van Hal BE-NL WSP-KTM 14
- 21 Justin Keuben-Dion Rietman NL-NL VMC-Zabel 13
- 20 Guennady Auvray-Rodolphe Lebreton FR-FR WSP-Zabel 13
- 38 Zeno Compalati-Lemuel Ravera IT-IT WSP-Zabel 12
- 49 Joachim Reimann-Philipp Reimann DE-DE WSP-Zabel 12
- 23 Nick Janssens-Glenn Janssens BE-BE VMC-Zabel 9
- 17 Christophe Cuche-Maxime Cuche CH-CH VMC-KTM 8
- 25 George Kinge-David Keane GB-GB VMC-Zabel 6
- 171 Bjorn Roes-Dagwin Sabbe NL-BE WSP-Zabel 5
- 56 Fabian Hoffman-Cornelius Dorig CH-CH WSP-KTM
- 89 Remo Inderbitzin-Martin Betschart CH-CH VMC-Yamaha 3
- 110 Jake Brown/Zac Snell GB-GB WSP-Zabel 1
Text: Emil Bilars
Photo: www.orangehat.nl
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