Mantova success for Russian Bobby

Posted by Ray | 19 February 2012 | Comment

Honda World Motocross rider Evgeny Bobryshev concluded his first race of the season in Italy today at the Mantova Starcross event with a superb second place overall, after going 3-4-1 at the sandy circuit.

In the absence of teammate Rui Gonçalves, who sat out of this weekend’s proceedings due to straining his shoulder in training last week, Bobryshev finished third in yesterday’s qualifying race before improving his gate pick in the one flying lap superpole session, to finish up in second ahead of today’s three races.

The 24-year-old Russian rider, who debuted his factory 2012 CRF 450R this weekend, didn’t get the best of starts to the first moto and spent the opening few laps getting into his groove. With David Phillippaerts just ahead, Bobryshev enjoyed a good battle to take up third mid-race, although the race leaders were too distant for him to make any impression by the chequered flag.

Following a good jump off the gate in the second race, Bobryshev collided with another rider and then went on to stall the bike. Despite dropping down to around 15th position, the Russian-ace got into a good rhythm and battled his way through the pack to come back to an impressive fourth place.

However, it was the final moto of the day where Bobryshev really found his pace. With a good start, the Honda pilot sat behind race-leader Tony Cairoli for a number of laps, before mid-race when both riders embarked in a good battle passing each other back and fourth. Bobryshev made a pass that stuck four laps from the end to take the race win and with it a podium finish in a positive second overall.

The Honda World Motocross team also welcomed Japanese rider Yu Hirata into the team this weekend, who posted three strong results in today’s races to finish in the top ten. The team will now stay at the Mantova track for three days of intensive testing with the Honda’s Japanese staff to further develop the factory CRF 450R machine.

Evgeny Bobryshev #777: 2nd Overall
“Overall it’s been a good weekend and I’m happy to come away with a podium. I’ve had some problems with my starts though; I made a mistake in the qualifying race and didn’t get the gate, so I was down in sixth position. I managed to come back through to third, and then improve to second in superpole, which was okay. In the first race today I had a bad start and came through to third after battling with Philippaerts. In the second race I had a pretty good start, but I stalled the bike and I lost a lot of time so I had to come back through. The last race was the best; battling with Tony and to win is good, especially putting the factory Honda on the podium at the first race of the year. I am happy because I have the speed, but there are still areas I want to improve. I particularly want to work on the small sharp corners, but this weekend has definitely been a big improvement on last year. We also have a lot of information from the racing to take to the test here over the next few days. It doesn’t matter how much training or testing that is done, it’s only when you race that you really understand everything, so this weekend has been really good for us to learn as much as possible and I’m looking forward to working hard the next three days to make some more improvements.”

Lorenzo Resta: Honda World Motocross Team Manager
“It was a good weekend. We’ve had a good result and it was great to show that we already have a good bike and our rider is well on the way with his preparations for the start of the season. The second moto was not so good, but the third was perfect, demonstrating Bobby how we know he can ride. It was important not to push too much as it wasn’t a World Championship event, but the strategy has been good for us. Before we came here we were training in Sardinia, and now we have a three day test, which is really important for us and the development for the future of the bike.”

Roger Harvey: Honda Motor Europe Off-Road Manager
“This has been a good building weekend for the first time out this season. It’s good to be back racing once again, and the results from Bobryshev were very encouraging for the season to come. Now we have another three days of hard work testing with our Japanese staff from Honda, Showa and Dunlop, where we look forward to making further developments on the bike that’s been raced today.”

Tags: 2012 mantova international, Evgeny Bobryshev, honda, honda world motocross team, italy, motocross, yu hirata