This year, Yamaha’s Romain Febvre and KTM’s Shaun Simpson proved they can go fast on any motocross track, anywhere, but they were definitely not racing on a motocross track over the weekend in France. Bercy-Lille let the duo learn the craft of supercross, and both kept it safe, and also rode well.
Matthes talked to them about the experience of whoops, bowl berms and the rest.
Romain Febrve | Yamaha Factory Racing Yamalube’s | 6-7 for seventh overall
Racer X: You’re a world champion but you’re not a supercross champion—not a lot of time on this type of track. But I thought you got better every time you went out. You showed a lot of heart too—passed guys back and got in there. Good job.
Romain Febvre: Thank you. I really enjoyed riding supercross this weekend. I had just four days of training before on the small track in Italy so I could not do so much better at that. But just the main thing was to be safe and don’t take any risk and ride safe. So when you see my first practice and the second final it’s a lot different. I learn quick but still the whoops section, it’s a big deal for me. I struggled there, but I made some good movement on the corners and on the jumps, so it’s good.
You know where you were great—scrubbing this big, tall single. You were really good there.
Yeah, yesterday I did some really good scrubbing. Today it was different, but yesterday, yeah.
What happened to you late in the race? You lost a bunch of spots. Did you go down?
No, the first lap many riders crashed in the second corner so I was just behind and could not move left or right, so I was maybe last or just before last. I came back fifth I think behind Weston [Peick]. After maybe five laps to go I struggled in the whoops and I was really riding tight, and then I get arm pump a little bit. So at the end I just say, just ride safe. So I dropped back seventh and that’s it.
We saw Webb crash hard, Malcolm crash, James crash. I don’t know if it was the track conditions or what, but it was just tough to ride fast? You took it easy, but why do you think there were so many crashes from our guys?
I think because the track is really soft. Like every year it’s the same, they build the track three or two days before. So the dirt outside, it’s not frozen but it’s really cold, wet. So the mud needs to have some time to dry and we didn’t have so much time. For sure, tough few laps, you get some ruts on the takeoff, in the whoops it’s tough. So many riders crashed. I knew it was difficult to ride and just decided to ride safe.
Shaun Simpson | Hitachi Revo KTM | 9-14 for eleventh overall
Racer X: You’re not a supercross specialist by any means. You don’t have a ton of time on it. But I thought this weekend, outside of this last main where it didn’t go well for you, you got better it seemed like every time you hit the track. What’d you think?
Shaun Simpson: I think exactly that. It was something that I came into this weekend underprepared. I’m not going to lie. I didn’t get nearly enough laps done around a supercross track, let alone a motocross track by the time I got here. The weather back in Scotland hasn’t been very fair to us. So coming in this weekend I felt a bit rusty to begin with. Started getting them cobwebs blown out the first few sessions Friday and then through into yesterday. And I actually felt come Super Pole tonight, I really felt like I was just about getting dialed into it. I really felt like my corner speed upped a notch and my whole timing on the rhythm [improved], which I was really struggling with last night. Even the whoops, although they got knocked down a bit, a few guys were still struggling but I felt like I’d actually upped my game a little bit on that. Disappointed that the main didn’t go so well tonight. I was looking for a top six, which would have been nice. I think it was possible, especially with the carnage that went on. Just to get out of this event in one piece and had an absolute blast with it. Everyone’s been commenting when they come over here all they can see is teeth. I’m just smiling. It’s just been an awesome experience to just try and widen my range of skills. A few people tried to put me off doing this event but I’m a motocross rider and I want to ride my bike, and this is a different setting, a different experience and Shaun Simpson wants to be here.
Last night you even led a couple laps. You got a little bit of help with Mookie colliding with Ferrandis. But tonight, I don’t know who went down behind you, but they caught the back end and you cased that double. Are you sore? Did something happen or you just couldn't get your bike?
Basically when I come out of the turn I was just behind [Christophe] Pourcel looking for a good second into the first lap. I just tangled with Fabian Iziord coming out of the corner. Sort of one of them ones when you lock handlebars and it puts you off course. Basically I just jumped off the track. It would have been fine had there been no freestyle ramp there. The freestyle ramps don’t really move that much, so I just sort of landed dead. And as I fell over onto the track I twisted my ankle pretty badly. So my bike was jammed between the freestyle ramp and the track. No chance of getting back from that. And I just thought, my ankle’s probably not going to be up to doing another 18 laps so let’s just sit this one out.
Unlucky @shaunsimpson24 pic.twitter.com/uAqCOHzKJ2
— Richard Brown (@Richardmxbrown) November 15, 2015Fourth in the Super Pole though—that’s pretty good.
Yeah, that was the highlight of the weekend for me, especially speed-wise. I wasn’t doing anything fancy, just doing everything right, got a good lap. Super Pole is one of them ones where you can look impressive but if everyone else messes up then you’re going to look good. But overall I think that was the highlight of the weekend. It just shows that my speed is there. My skill set isn’t just polished up to where it needs to be. I think everyone was quietly impressed with how I got on this weekend, especially coming from MXGP and a motocross background.
I don’t know how much you watched that last main event, you were down on the floor, but there was carnage everywhere. The track, I think, was a big factor. It was just going away, it was rutty, soft. Is that kind of what was going on?
The track was tough. They did a good job. They prepped up as good as they could for the main event. I don’t think they could have done any more, to be honest. Credit to the track team. All weekend with all the racing that goes on that’s a big job keeping that thing right. I think the dirt was good but it was a little bit soft, so it made riding conditions quite difficult but on a whole I think supercross in tight arenas like this does lend itself to a few little crashes and things like that. So I wasn’t the only one to have an excursion but overall I think we done okay. We stayed on two wheels mostly and had limited sketchy moments.
So we’ll see you at Anaheim? [Laughs]
[Laughs] Well, you never know.
