The team’s home GP was hosted at Matterly Basin for round twelve of the World Championship. The sun shone during the action-packed weekend.

Contesting in the EMX250 championship, Gyan qualified ninth in timed practice. Struggling off the start in race one, it took Gyan the first half of the race to find his flow; once he started to find his rhythm, he began moving up the scoreboard. By the end of the race, Gyan had got into sixth.

Race two was a similar story, with not getting the best of starts again, this time having to fight from outside the top 20. He ticked off the laps and finished in thirteenth after suffering from some arm pump. This gave him ninth overall on the day and sits fourth in the championship standings.

Oriol qualified twelfth in the MX2 timed practice and improved his gate position to sixth in the qualifying race. Heading into the races, Oriol showed the field he can mix it up at the sharp end as he was second off the start and straight away applied the pressure for the lead on holeshot man and previous world champion Andrea Adamo. Oriol did exactly that and launched into the lead by the end of the opening lap, from here Oriol led the field by over 4 seconds. Unfortunately on lap 6 the track caught him out and he had a small crash. He remounted quickly and pushed to the end to finish a career best third place. With a potential of a podium finish on the cards, Oriol and the team were hoping for another solid result in race two. Regrettably he couldn’t avoid another rider who almost crashed in front of him and clipped the rear wheel, this saw Oriol go down on the opening lap. Despite this unfortunate incident he still dug deep and powered on, finishing in 10th place. Although he would have preferred a better second race finish he still finished the weekend fifth overall, just 1 point away from fourth.

Oriol: “Really happy about the weekend. The weekend started with P17 in free practice, which doesn’t mean anything, but it’s hard to turn around the weekend when you start a little bit like that. We made some changes which improved a lot and had P6 in qualifying race. Race 1 had a good start and I could ride like I do in my training sessions during the week. I made my way into first and pushed until I made a little mistake and crashed. I got up really quickly and was really happy to still finish third. All the hard work and struggles this season seemed worth it for this result. In the second moto, I wanted to repeat this and was a little nervous; however, I took another good start but someone crashed in front of me and I crashed also. I needed to come from P23 to P10. My rhythm felt good to come back to this position. Really happy with the weekend, my team and we’ll keep working towards that podium!”

Gyan: “Difficult weekend in Matterly Basin, though I was really looking forward to riding this beautiful track. I couldn’t get a good feeling on the bike in practice and the beginning of the first moto. In the second part of the first moto, I think I had a good pace but was too far from the front group and had to settle for sixth. In the second moto, a really bad start had me coming from at least outside the top 20 and finished 13th on a track really hard to pass. But no excuses, just wasn’t good enough this weekend. Need to get the same start as in Latvia and will be on the box again soon! Some sand gp’s coming up, can’t wait for some surfing again. Thanks to everyone in my corner.”

Team Manager Shaun Simpson: “What a weekend for the British Grand Prix. I even felt a little bit bad complaining about the dust after all the wet races we have had this season.

Oriol showed his true class again this weekend and proved again that he is one of the riders in the top 10 that can fight for podiums. Leading laps in moto one and always being focused and committed to his racing, we are making big steps in the right direction.

Gyan didn’t look himself again this weekend. He looked stiff and tight but battled hard in both motos with some good laps but the results were not what we expected.

We have a couple of weeks now to regroup with the riders, take some rest, work on the weak points and come back fresh for the second half of the season.

Thanks to the sponsors, fans and our crew for making the British GP one to remember.”

Next Event: 13th July | MXGP | Litti-KymiRing, Finland

📸 Juan Pablo Acevedo