Night two of the Lille Supercross, around 90 minutes north of Paris, France, proved to be quite chaotic. At the end of the night, it was Auto Trader/JGR Yamaha’s Weston Peick standing as the overall King of Lille with 1-2 finishes over the course of the two main events. But this one was far from easy.
After a win in the main last night, Peick was forced to the last chance qualifier after a late race crash in his heat. Winning the LCQ wasn’t a problem, but the far outside gate pick for the main event was. Predictably, Peick didn’t get a good start and was buried for most of the opening laps. Out front was Rockstar Energy Husqvarna’s Christophe Pourcel who got the holeshot and was feeling great from his Super Pole win earlier in the night. Pourcel took off with a nice lead while Honda’s Fabien Izoird spun out and forced KTM’s Shaun Simpson off the track, landing right onto the freestyle ramp.
Pourcel was checking out while GEICO Honda’s Malcolm Stewart and Yamalube/Star Racing Yamaha’s Cooper Webb were fighting it out for the runner-up spot with some nice back and forth passes. At this point, via 3-1 finishes, Pourcel was in line to win the King of Lille trophy.
Webb pulled away from Stewart a bit and chased after the Frenchman. He was right on him and if he had made the pass, Webb would have won King of Lille. But while looking to make the pass he clipped the top of the dragon-back and went down hard. Webb shook it off after a bit to stay in the race, but was a ways back now (he ended up fifth).
Now it was Stewart’s turn to try and reel in Pourcel. But Malcolm was unable to make any headway as he clipped a small double and went right over the bars! It was a scary crash, but Stewart got up and rode on until he realized his bike was unable to finish the job.
Malcolm Stewart showed great speed but went DNF-DNF over the two nights. His brother James was hurt last night and wasn’t able to line up today. It was a rough weekend for the brothers.
Pourcel was back in the drivers seat to win the title, but the carnage allowed the charging Weston Peick to get into second and that was enough after his win last night to clinch the King of Lille title. Pourcel took the checkers with a nice ride, Peick was second and Izoird was third on the night. The result of the crashes and DNF’s for the American riders allowed France to win the best country of Lille even though riders like Dylan Ferrandis and Nicolas Aubin suffered heavy crashes throughout the night.
With the tragedies in Paris on Friday, a race like this reminds of how little importance these things are in the end.
Prince of Lille
- Maxime Desprey | Kaw | FRA
- Floretn Richier | Yam | FRA
- Tomas Do | Hon | FRA
- Yannis Irsuti | Yam | FRA
- Josse Sallefranque | Hon | FRA
- Brian Hsu | Suz | GER
- Darian Sanayei | Kaw | USA
- Thibault Laurent | Hona | FRA
- Gaetan Le Hir | Hon | FRA
- Francesco Muratro | Suz | ITA
King of Lille
- Weston Peick | 1-2 | Yam | USA
- Christophe Pourcel 3-1 | Hus | FRA
- Cooper Webb | 2-5 | Yam | USA
- Valentin Guillod | 4-4 | Yam | SUI
- Fabien Izoird | 7-3 | Hon | FRA
- Cedric Soubeyras | 5-6 | Yam | FRA
- Romain Febvre | 6-7 | Yam | FRA
- Loic Rombaut | 10-8 | KTM | FRA
- Dylan Ferrandis | 13-10 | Kaw | FRA
- Malcolm Stewart | 12-11 | Hon | USA
- Shaun Simpson | 9-14 | KTM | GBR
- Valentin Teillet | 11-13 | Hon | FRA
- Christophe Martin | 8-16 | Kaw | FRA
- Thomas Ramette | 16-9 | KTM | FRA
- Cyrille Coulon | 15-12 | Kaw | FRA
- James Stewart | 14-15 | Suz | USA
