A troublesome and unpredictable MX2 campaign for Red Bull KTM’s Jeffrey Herlings has almost certainly come to a halt today at Loket for the Grand Prix of Czech Republic after a crash while running in thirteenth position for the Qualification Heat saw the former champion taken to hospital with a dislocated right hip.
Herlings fell after apparently clipping a piece of banking on the jump onto the start straight at the hard, dusty and slippery circuit and had barely risen to his feet before being hit by former teammate Jordi Tixier who was following directly behind and had no time to avoid the twenty year old. Herlings managed to crawl several metres away from the racing line and then received almost thirty minutes of medical attention and two saline drips from the to try and cope with the pain of the dislocation.
His shell-shocked team – who have already coped with plenty of adversity this season – were able to relay later in the afternoon that Herlings had displaced the leg and had thankfully not broken any of the bones around the joint. It was another hard episode for Herlings who broke his left femur just over a year ago and has since fractured his collarbone and ripped open his left finger in separate incidents this term. Ironically it was at Loket in 2010 where Herlings had to prematurely end his very first Grand Prix year with a dislocated shoulder.
‘84’ currently has a 46 point lead in the standings over HRC Gariboldi’s Tim Gajser before Sunday’s motos at Loket but now has to be counted out of the rest of the 2015 championship. Incredibly Gajser is also nursing an injury to his right ankle after a fall in Latvia as well as his torso after a crash while testing a 450 only last Thursday. The Slovenian is just 32 points ahead of Rockstar Suzuki’s Jeremy Seewer in fifth position with Standing Construct Yamaha’s Valentin Guillod and KTM’s Pauls Jonass in the mix.
MX2 Pole Position holder in the Czech Republic and winner in Latvia two weeks ago, Monster Energy DRT Kawasaki’s Max Anstie is not out of the running at 65 points behind Gajser. When asked what he thought of potential championship prospects the Englishman said: “I’d like to continue being strong and solid and that’s it. I need to focus on laps and motos and see where I end up. Of course I’d love to be in a position where I am up there by the end of the championship that would be really good and I feel myself and my team have worked hard to bring everything together. I genuinely haven’t been looking at the points. We’ll see how it goes and if it comes down to something by the end.”
Photo by Ray Archer
