Report: Musquin brings home the Lille SX crown
By Alex Hodgkinson on 16th Nov 16
Home hero Marvin Musquin kept up his run of form with a double win in the Lille Supercross. The American based Red Bull KTM star was the first first French winner of the Bercy title in a decade and also led the Grande Nation to victory in the team competition...
Marvin Musquin ran down Thomas Ramette for victory in the opening heat of the Lille Supercross on Saturday.
But the real thrills came in heat two as Justin Barcia and Cedric Soubeyras confirmed their reputations on either side of the Atlantic as ‘rowdies' with a series of no holds-barred clinches.
The American is clearly still missing that final tenth of a second through the whoops on his new mount and ‘Soubs' sped past with a cheeky side glance to take the lead.
Barcia was clearly not amused by the personal affront and retaliated with questionable block pass attempts, his final ‘move' consisting of a double slamming.
Perhaps it was the low temperatures but the crowd – vastly bigger than SMX or Arnhem – did not react in such animated fashion as they had when he parked Aranda in Bercy five years ago.
With a cheque at stake Musquin was taking no prisoners as he sped to a half-second victory over the Americans in the Superpole and the first final was a foregone conclusion as he holeshot.
Five seconds up within a couple of laps he was soon content just to control the gap over Barcia in second with the rest of the leaderboard, bar Christian Craig, pounding through to fifth despite the team tactics of the SR75 Suzukis, cast in iron by lap three of 18.
Tommy Searle, having exited a qualifying fourth in his heat when the Kawasaki expired, swept through the LCQ and ran a solid seventh in the main before running off track.
He refreshingly picked the pace up again in the closing third of the race – but it was to late by then.
Jack Brunell shot out of the gate in his first heat to run a strong third, but was eventually pushed out of the qualifiers. Searle just missed a direct transfer on Sunday, but ran away with the LCQ ahead of Romain Febvre and rode a solid race in the Main to advance from an initial 12th to ninth at the chequered flag.
Barcia was still struggling through the whoops and had to compensate with aggression in the turns while Musquin just cleared off in his heat and repeated the dose in the Main.
Another holeshot set him on his way and the slender Frenchman led by the length of the stadium within two laps.
In his wake the Americans soon occupied positions
2-3-4 and on the personal side Stewart had the upper hand against Barcia – until he flipped out of a seemingly secure second.
Getting back on in sixth he was unable to pull back Soubeyras and Teillet and handed the Nations classification to the French as Musquin's double-victory separated the points tie.
SX2 was the preserve of the French experts as cherry-picker Florent Richier and no longer quite-so-young Thomas Do dominated on day one, but Brian Hsu was on it on Sunday in his debut ride for Maurer Husqvarna as led the final all the way.
Jake Nicholls qualified with ease on Saturday and was recovering strongly from
first-lap traffic until he too ran off track and quite literally ‘slipped up' trying to re-enter the race.
"They had plastic covering the trackside and as I tried to turn to ride back up the bank the back end stepped out,” said Nicholls.
"The front end was too bent to carry on.”
Jake's adventures continued on Sunday.
He holeshot his heat before he front-ended in the whoops and another top-three start in the LCQ also ended on lap one, when he whisky-throttled and looped out in a rhythm section.
Joe Clayton tried hard but was simply not on final pace.
He was in good company with American riders, Masterpool and Surratt looking totally outclassed.
