MXGP of Patagonia-Argentina race report
By Team TMX on 11th Mar 24
The 2024 FIM MXGP World Championship got underway with a win for defending champion Jorge Prado who ran 2-1 in Sunday’s races to take the Grand Prix win and with his additional seven points for finishing third in Saturday’s RAM Qualifying Race, the Red Bull GASGAS runner leads the series standings by three points ahead of Kawasaki Racing Team’s Romain Febvre and Team HRC’s Tim Gajser who won two out of the weekend’s three points-paying races.
The Slovenian set his stall out early in the RAM Qualifying Race, leading every lap as he led home Febvre and Pauls Jonass (Standing Construct Honda) while Prado worked his way around Maxime Renaux (Monster Energy Yamaha) to grab fourth, with Renaux finishing fifth and Jeffrey Herlings (Red Bull KTM) sixth. Perhaps, a warning of what was to come as the six world champions in the line-up filled the top six places in the race.
An opening lap crash put Brent van Doninck (JM Racing Honda) and Jago Geerts (Monster Energy Yamaha) our for the foreseeable future – Van Doninck with a broken femur and Geerts an arm injury. An elbow injury – not sustained in the same incident – would also put SS24 Gabriel KTM’s Josh Gilbert out of Sunday’s races.
Prado put his #1 machine into the lead immediately with a trademark holeshot in race one and even though Renaux and Febvre sneaked through going into turn two the champion was having none of it and he was soon back in control!
Gajser had an eventful first few laps as he battled with Jonass. After passing the Latvian, Tim suddenly slid sideways in a corner and lost the position, before tipping over in the very next corner and dropping from fifth to 13th!
Herlings fell at the exact same spot as Gajser a few laps later but would recover to finish eighth at the flag.
Halfway through, Febvre made a move to demote Renaux from second but couldn’t make any dent into Prado’s lead. Gajser battled back to fifth, nearly catching Renaux on the last lap, with Jonass finishing third behind Febvre and the winner Prado.
Race two saw Renaux claim the holeshot but after running wide allowed Gajser to move to the front. From there the Slovenian superstar was able to establish an early gap that he would never relinquish.
All the action happened behind him as Jonass started in second although Prado soon found a way past and Renaux slid off. Febvre moved past Jonass a lap later, putting himself into the top three for good and not just in the race, but in the overall reckoning as well.
At half-distance, there was an all-Dutch freight train as a slow-starting Herlings caught Fantic Racing’s Glenn Coldenhoff and Monster Energy Yamaha new boy Calvin Vlaanderen. The Bullet managed to shoot them both but had to give way to Renaux’s late charge and finished seventh.
Kawasaki Racing Team’s debutant, Jeremy Seewer, took a solid fifth to go with his race one seventh, and the all-world champion top four of Gajser, Prado, Febvre, and Jonass stayed in that order to the flag, although the Spaniard tangled with a lapped rider to raise his heart rate somewhat in the closing laps!
This left Prado to claim his 39th overall GP victory, equalling the great Eric Geboers for seventh in the all-time GP winner’s list and returning him to the top of the MXGP standings.
“It was a very good weekend with very good races today,” enthused Jorge. In the first one I started second and passed Renaux very quickly – yesterday I lost so much time behind him so I knew I had to make the pass straight away and that's what I did. Seewer was just behind me all the time and we were running a very good pace till the end. It was a good race win.
“The second race I had a better start but I lost it in the corner. I was too cautious and then Tim got me from the inside. He was there at the front and we rode the same pace the whole time. We were riding a good pace.
“I was riding very smooth all day. I didn't make any mistakes so I'm very happy. Couldn't ask for a better start to the year. It's super cool to go back to Spain and be home for the first round.”
For full results look here.
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