American Thomas Covington finally broke into the top ten in the MX2 world championship this year – with a stunning moto and overall win in the heat of Mexico!
The Husky ace, who had won yesterday’s qualifying heat, took a fine fourth place in the opener but backed it up with a win in race two. He tailed holeshot man Pauls Jonass for a handlful of laps before pulling away to take the race and overall victory. “It was the best race of my career,” he said.
But Covington was not the fastest man on the track. That was world championship leader Jeremy Seewer who took the lead on the opening lap of moto one and pulled away to an easy win.
Second time out he didn’t have such a great start but worked his way up to third place behind Covington and Jonass, which would have given him the overall win.
But he lost control in a corner and was thrown off the side of his bike, although he managed to get back on without actually falling down. But it was enough to let KTM privateer Julien Lieber back through to third place.
Seewer tried hard to catch and pass him but admitted the near-miss had sapped his energy. He still finished level on points with Covington, but the American took the overall win thanks to his second race victory.
Lieber’s pass meant he took third overall – his third podium of the year. He took two third places and is now fourth in the series.
It wasn’t an ideal day for former red plate holder Pauls Jonass, as he crashed in practice and was riding in pain with stitches in his arm. He dropped back to fifth in the opener and then had second in the final moto to take fourth overall. He’s now eight points adrift of Seewer, with Frenchman Benoit Paturel six points further back.
Paturel took second in the first moto but had a poor start and could only make eighth at the Leon track, ruining his bid for a podium.
Brit Adam Sterry fell in the first moto but got back on and took tenth, and held a top six place in moto two before dropping back to ninth for ninth overall.
Ben Watson had a 16th but failed to finish moto two with a bike problem.
