A strong Tony Cairoli fight with pain in Semarang

The thirteenth seasonal round of the MXGP was hosted this weekend on the new venue of Semarang, a big city on the island of Java, 450 kilometers southeast of the capital Jakarta. 

Antonio Cairoli, who arrived at the second Indonesian round with the thumb of his left hand injured by suffering a subluxation last week, rode smart, trying to limit the damage and to bring home as many points as possible. Tony "managed" the pain during all practice on Saturday, trying not to worsen the already delicate situation. Starting from the thirteenth gate in the qualifying race, he managed to fight and reassemble up to the fifth place finish, showing the usual inexhaustible determination. The Red Bull Factory Racing Team KTM rider was determined on the starting grid of the two Sunday's races, ready to give his best to bring home some solid points. Started first in race one, he fought throughout the moto and after 17 laps crossed the finish line taking a fantastic third place. In race two the pain made everything more difficult and even if Tony took his fourteenth hole-shot of the year with his KTM 450 SX-F, he has not managed to stay in the top positions, going down in the ranking until the eighth. Never demoralized, Cairoli has once again gritted his teeth, disputing an amazing second part of the race, which earned him the comeback to the fourth final place, which is also worth the fourth place of the day. Upon returning to Italy, the current MXGP Champion will undergo tests to understand the nature of his injury. Next meeting with the MXGP in fifteen days in the Czech Republic.

Antonio Cairoli: “It has been a good weekend, even though it was a difficult race. We already knew since the beginning of the week that the injury would have given us a lot of troubles, especially on a track like this, hard, very fast and not very technical. My goal was to be able to make two top five, so I'm happy, even if the podium would have been possible if I could keep the pace in race two. Unfortunately the pain was a lot and I was not able to hold it, so in the middle of the race I had a big drop. Luckily in the end I recovered, achieving the goal to enter the five. Once we get back home, we will try to better understand what to do with the hand, to make us ready to fight in Loket in two weeks.”

Race 1

1-J.Herlings 2-T.Gajser 3-A.Cairoli 4-C.Desalle 5-G.Paulin

Race 2
1-J.Herlings 2-C.Desalle 3-T.Gajser 4-A.Cairoli 5-J.Seewer

Grand Prix
1-J.Herlings 50p. 2-T.Gajser 42p. 3-C.Desalle 40p. 4-A.Cairoli 38p. 5-T.Searle 28p.

MXGP Standings
1-J.Herlings 583p. 2-A.Cairoli 559p. 3-C.Desalle 447p. 4-T.Gajser 410p. 5-R.Febvre 400p.