Frenchman Benoit Paturel took his first ever MX2 overall win, ruining the dreams of home hero Jeremy Seewer who was urged on all the way by the vast crowd at Fraufeld in Switzerland.

The opener saw Seewer waste little time in getting to the front, urged on all the way by the partisan fans. Paturel caught him up and there was a frantic last lap where the Yamaha man put loads of pressure on the Suzuki man. Seewer held on to take the win.

But second time out Seewer went down in the first corner after clipping the rear wheel of holeshot man Jorge Prado. Seewer later blamed Prado for blocking, as he also has alleged in other races this year.

Seewer mounted dead last and put on a staggering ride through the pack. He came close to a huge crash when he clashed with Julien Lieber in mid air. The Belgian went down, uninjured, but Seewer somehow managed to stay on. He pulled back through to fourth place.

But the race was won by Paturel who had worked his way past early leader Thomas Covington. Covington led after Prado and then Pauls Jonass both slipped off in separate crashes.

Paturel took the win to claim his first overall. He said: “I have waited so long for this first victory. All day I felt good and I did a good job.”

Seewer did enough to get second overall, clawing a few points back on red plate man Jonass.

Seewer said: “I had a pretty big crash at the start, going for the holeshot. Surprisingly the KTMs pulled in at the end of the start and cut me off. I was so pumped to get out there and race. I couldn’t have made it so far without the fans. I thought I could have had two wins today but it didn’t happen.”

Third overall was Jonass, who was never on top form but still took two third places. He said: “We were off all weekend and I didn’t get used to the track. I tried to improve. In the second race I crashed but still finished on the podium. It’s my 13th podium – although it doesn’t feel the same as winning.”

British champion Ben Watson took a strong seventh overall on his Hitachi KTM.