Saturday’s action from the 2023 Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations has wrapped up and qualifying is now complete for at least 19 countries heading into Sunday’s action. Three qualifying races were run for each class meaning every nation finally got to see how their respective riders matched up against each other. There was also a 40-minute free practice in the morning for each class as we saw riders on track for the first time of the weekend at Ernee.
A packed how along the French hillsides watched as the MXGP qualifying race fired into the first corner. Current MXGP World Champion and Team Spain’s Jorge Prado launched out to the holeshot just ahead of Switzerland’s Jeremy Seewer and Belgium’s Jago Geerts. Aaron Plessinger was in an early seventh place for the USA and even bumped up to sixth after Geerts had a small tip over on the second lap.
Perhaps the most unfortunate moment of the day came on the first lap when a handful of riders including Canada’s Dylan Wright went down on the big tabletop in the middle of the track and caused a huge pileup. Grant Harlan, who is riding for Team Guam this weekend, ended up landing on the pile of bikes and ejected down off the table hard onto the ground. Medics were quick to attend to him as he laid there for a few laps. He would eventually be backboarded off and taken to the hospital. Harlan took to Twitter to reveal he suffered a fractured pelvis and was still awaiting further evaluation on his next move.
Landed on another riders bike and flew straight to my back. Pelvis is fractured but still waiting to figure out what the next move is. Nothing we could do
— Grant Harlan (@HarlanGrant) October 7, 2023
As the racing continued, Prado began inching away at the front of the pack while France’s Romain Febvre stared to reel in Slovenia’s Tim Gajser for fourth. The crowd erupted as Febvre found his way through and set sail for Seewer and Germany’s Ken Roczen ahead of him.
Plessinger fell from sixth on the fourth lap, but it was just a tip over and he continued on in eighth place having only lost two places. While Febvre was marching towards the leaders, Australia’s Jett Lawrence caught fire at the halfway point of the race as he passed Gajser to get into fifth and almost immediately caught Febvre in fourth. He wasted little time moving past Febvre and the rest of the race consisted of Jett slowing catching and passing Roczen for third and eventually Seewer for second as well. However, there just wasn’t enough time for him to run down Prado who had opened up a sizeable lead by that point as he cruised to the win to put a solid 1 on the board for Spain.
| Rider | Time | Interval | Best Lap | Bike | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Jorge Prado | 23:58.100 | 0.000 | GasGas | ||
| 2 |  Jett Lawrence | 24:02.476 | 4.376 | Honda | ||
| 3 |  Jeremy Seewer | 24:04.538 | 6.438 | Yamaha | ||
| 4 |  Ken Roczen | 24:06.576 | 8.476 | Suzuki | ||
| 5 |  Romain Febvre | 24:13.770 | 15.670 | Kawasaki |
The second race of the day featured the MX2 contingent, and RJ Hampshire gave the American fans at home something to cheer about as he grabbed the holeshot in the MX2 qualifying race. Right behind him he had France’s Tom Vialle and Germany’s Simon Laengenfelder, but Laengenfelder snuck a quick pass in on Vialle to get into second. Hampshire then fell while leading before the end of the first lap and slipped back to sixth, handing the lead over to Laengenfelder.
Australia’s Hunter Lawrence moved into third early on as he passed Puerto Rico’s Jack Chambers. Hampshire seemed fired up from his crash and was up into fourth before long moving around South Africa’s Camden McLellan and then Chambers as well. The Netherlands’ Kay De Wolf was hanging right on to Hampshire as he moved into fifth and their little battle raged on nearly the whole way.
Up front, Lawrence was inching up on Vialle after Laengenfelder started to pull away and that seemed to light a fire back under Vialle as he started closing the gap back down to Laengenfelder. Laengenfelder still looked like he would get it done as the one lap board came out, but Vialle hit the afterburners and put a great pass on him for the lead. The crowd erupted and Vialle would cross the line to take the win as the roof had fully blown off the place.
| Rider | Time | Interval | Best Lap | Bike | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tom Vialle | 24:26.806 | 0.000 | KTM | ||
| 2 | Simon Längenfelder | 24:28.662 | 1.856 | GasGas | ||
| 3 | Hunter Lawrence | 24:32.543 | 5.737 | Honda | ||
| 4 |  Kay de Wolf | 24:40.235 | 13.429 | Husqvarna | ||
| 5 |  R.J. Hampshire | 24:40.945 | 14.139 | Husqvarna |
There was still one more moto left to run though as the Open class lined up. But the party kept on raging on as France’s Open class rider Maxime Renaux grabbed the holeshot ahead of USA’s Christian Craig. Craig would bobble on the first lap and almost go down heading up the uphill sweeper and that allowed Estonia’s Harri Kullas to sneak up the inside into second place.
The Netherlands would take a huge blow in this moto as Glenn Coldenhoff ended up crashing in the first couple laps that would result in a concussion and what the team believed to be a broken rib. It appears The Netherlands will be without one of their riders on Sunday then which certainly puts a big wrench in their possibility to contend for a podium.
Renaux slowly pulled away at the front from there while Kullas ran second for about half the moto before being caught and passed by Spain’s Ruben Fernandez. Fernandez had a similar pace to Renaux out front but spent nearly the whole moto catching and passing people and even fell over late in the race. He would finish up in second, but he’ll be hoping for a better start in his two motos on Sunday.
France completed what really amounted to the perfect day as Renaux won and the crowd roared. Since one result is dropped from the day, Febvre’s fifth in the first moto was not counted for France’s score for the day which meant they technically went 1-1 to qualify P1 for Sunday’s action.
| Rider | Time | Interval | Best Lap | Bike | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maxime Renaux | 24:36.875 | 0.000 | Yamaha | ||
| 2 | Ruben Fernandez | 24:48.014 | 11.139 | Honda | ||
| 3 |  Liam Everts | 24:51.534 | 14.659 | KTM | ||
| 4 |  Harri Kullas | 24:57.911 | 21.036 | Yamaha | ||
| 5 | Christian Craig | 25:06.813 | 29.938 | Husqvarna |
France ended up on top, but it was only by a single point as Prado’s win coupled with Fernandez’s second put Spain on three points for the day. Australia wrapped up the podium with five points pulling from Jett Lawrence’s second place in MXGP and his brother Hunter’s third place in the MX2 class. The tough break for Australia was Dean Ferris having a big crash in the Open moto while running in fifth place right behind Christian Craig, but despite a mangled bike, he apparently was okay and should be good to go for Sunday’s action.
Team USA ultimately ended up sixth after they took Hampshire’s and Craig’s fifth place finished to end up on 10 points. The result doesn’t really match how solid USA looked despite a couple untimely crashes and they certainly could turn it around tomorrow. For now, though, that’s a wrap from what happened on Saturday. We’ll be back tomorrow to crown one of these nations as the 2023 champions.
