Newsletter

The official race report service of Kawasaki Racing Team.

MX2, WW Motocross Park, Jacksonville, USA, 4 Septembre 2017

Darian Sanayei twelfth in the Florida heat

Darian Sanayei raced to twelfth position for Monster Energy DRT Kawasaki in the US round of the FIM World MX2 Motocross Championship, run in extreme conditions at Jacksonville in Florida.
 

Raised in Seattle and a based in Europe for the past two seasons, Darian found the high temperatures and claustrophobic humidity equally as challenging as all of the visitors. Starting the first moto in the first ten, he could not maintain the pace and finished thirteenth at the close. Determined to make amends in race two he again started in the top ten, but was unable to avoid a fallen rival on the opening lap and crashed over the handlebars; restarting last, he recovered to fourteenth at the chequered flag to secure twelfth overall in the GP and maintain the same position in the series standings with two GPs remaining.
 
Stephen Rubini of the Monster Energy Kawasaki MX2 Racing Team rode a strong first moto to advance from seventeenth to twelfth, his second best result of the season, but he had to withdraw from sixteenth in the second race when he started to suffer spells of dizziness in the heat.
 
Teammate Morgan Lesiardo joined the French youngster in the points-scoring positions in the opening moto as he finished nineteenth but he too was forced to withdraw from the second race as the exhaust was damaged as he held sixteenth position.
 
Darian Sanayei: “It was a difficult weekend; with the rain during the week the track was really soft and it didn’t go exactly the way I wanted to. I didn’t felt so good in the heat and I was a little bit off the pace all weekend, three or four seconds down on the leaders. In the first moto I got a pretty good start but right away I started to make some mistakes and made my way to thirteenth. In the second moto I was around tenth position when a rider crashed in front of me on the first lap; I hit him and went over the bars, so I had to make my way back from last to fourteenth.”
 
Stephen Rubini: “It wasn’t an easy weekend; on Saturday I had a good result in the free practice session but later in the day it was not as good and I qualified in eighteenth position. I had a good warm up and I rode a strong first moto to finish twelfth; I was happy to score a top fifteen result but unfortunately the second race was not so good. I suffered from dizziness after a few laps and had to stop and they took me to the medical unit to recover. I don’t really understand what happened as I pay attention to diet and hydration, but we’re not so used to such extreme humidity and heat.”

All WW Motocross Park, Jacksonville news