MX2 Qualifying Heat

Aboard a Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing YZ250F, Guillem Farres grabbed the holeshot, but he was quickly passed by Justin Cooper. Cooper started to gap Farres, who came under fire by Hunter Lawrence as one of the MX2 favorites Jo Shimoda crashed once with another rider and then once later on his own. The Japanese rider eventually came through the finish line in 12th. Out front, Cooper cruised to the race win, repeating what he did in 2019 in his debut MXoN event by claiming his qualifying race win. Hunter Lawrence claimed second ahead of Marvin Musquin and Farres. There was a wild battle for fifth place between Andrea Adamo, Simon Laengenfelder, and Liam Everts, who eventually caught Kay De Wolf, who was limping home a busted up rear wheel. Unfortunately for de Wolf, his race ended one lap early and the track crew had to pick his mangled bike up and carry it off the track since his damaged wheel was unusable. Adamo held on for fifth place. Musquin rode well but was too far from Hunter Lawrence and Cooper to contest for the win, but the veteran rode well. Team Guam's Josh Varize put in a respectable tenth place finish.

“That's pretty much how it was for my seat also,” Cooper said when asked if his ride was easily to control with a good start. “It was nice with the fans. Honestly, I've never had that many people behind me, cheering me on throughout the whole track, that was something else and I've never experienced that, so it was kind of like an adrenaline rush the whole race. I was having a lot of fun out there and I almost wished it was longer. Now just need to bring the same energy tomorrow for the races and keep that intensity.”

Open Qualifying Heat

Calvin Vlaanderen got the holeshot. Out of nowhere, Chase Sexton went from about fifth to second place, then clicked off a pass on Vlaanderen to take over the lead as the duo came through the exit of the first turn. Sexton started to click off solid laps with clean air but a charging Dylan Ferrandis had other plans. The 2021 450 Class Pro Motocross Champion got close to his competitor but was not able to make a pass stick. Then, coming over the finish line, he somehow got a kick and got his left leg stuck in his rear wheel. He had to stop completely and roll his bike back a little in order to get his leg unstuck. Although not injured in the freak situation, Ferrandis lost a lot of time to Sexton. He continued to charge to about five seconds behind Sexton when on the last lap, Sexton tipped over in a turn and handed the lead to Ferrandis with about half a lap to go. Sexton came through three seconds back ahead of a strong third-place finish from 450cc debutant Jett Lawrence. Ruben Fernandez and Vlaanderen rounded out the top five.

“It was a very weird moment, it had never happened to me before,” Ferrandis said on his leg getting stuck. “Before the finish jump, my leg went in the back of my bike and was stuck in the wheel, so my knee was completely stuck. I had to stop, push the bike in reverse and then get my leg free and go. I don't know why this happened, but these sorts of things always happen at the Motocross of Nations… The expectations for tomorrow are very easy, we want to win and we will try everything to win. The war has already started against Team USA and I think this will be really interesting. We will give everything, as everybody, but I think we have a strong team to do it.”

Check out the qualifying highlights below:

Other Notes:

-Hardy Munoz was the first MX2 rider to hit LaRocco’s Leap to start the day.

-Enzo Lopes blew up his race bike and his crew does not have a second bike, so his weekend was over before it really got started.

-Racer X has learned Jorgen Talviku suffered a broken femur in a crash over LaRocco’s Leap. Despite Talviku’s injury, Team Estonia still qualified for tomorrow’s motos after a sixth from Harri Kullas and a 15th from MXoN legend Tanel Leok.

Now that qualifying is complete, the worst finish by each country has been dropped, giving us our pole positions for Sunday's races. Heading into the final and most important day, Team USA leads the qualification with three points (Cooper's win and Sexton's second, dropping Tomac's second) over Team France (four points: Ferrandis' win and Musquin's third, dropping Maxime Renaux's seventh), and Team Australia (five points: Hunter Lawrence's second and Jett Lawrence's third, dropping Evans' fourth), Spain (eight points: Fernandez's fourth and Farres' fourth and dropping Prado's fifth), and Belgium (eight points: Geerts' win and Evert's seventh, dropping Van Horebeeok's 12th). With Team USA having the lowest score on Saturday, they will get the first and 21st gate pick for Sunday’s first motos, then France will get second and 22nd gate selections and so on down the line.

Sunday morning will kick off with the B-final warmup, followed by a warmup session for the groups already qualified. Then, the B-final will take place at 10:50 a.m. to determine the final team spot in the three points-paying races. The top country with the best finishes—minus the worst finish removed—will claim the final spot for the three races. Tune into MXGP-TV.com and CBS Sports Network tomorrow.