It was becoming abundantly clear that Tim Gajser was going to clinch this year’s MXGP World Championship with rounds in hand. The ultimate question then became how early would that happen. Even with a second-half slump combined with a good stretch for Jeremy Seewer, the 14th day of August is officially the answer. GT243 now makes it four World Championships on a 450, and five total counting his 2015 MX2 win. This also caps a stretch of three World Titles in the last four seasons.
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Points in the Bank
Despite winning this year’s Championship with two rounds to go, Gajser has been on a rough stretch for a while now. Dating back to the MXGP of Sardegna in the middle of May to be a little more precise. From there on, Gajser does have two Grand Prix wins to his name. On the flip side, he has just three Moto wins and six finishes outside the top five.
Judging solely on that nine-event run, you may be questioning how Gajser won the title this early, well here is how. To kick off the season, he rattled off 15 consecutive podium finishes, 10 Moto wins, and six Grand Prix wins in the opening seven rounds. On those first seven rounds alone, Gajser earned 336 points, good for half of all of his points this season. By that point, he was 81 points clear of Maxime Renaux, 105 points up on Seewer, and 116 points up on Jorge Prado. Although Renaux missed rounds due to injury, Gajser has since only lost one net point to Seewer in those next nine rounds. This despite a notable dip in production from the start of the year.
Honda Legend
On both sides of the pond, Honda has no shortage of all-time great riders who have run any form of a CRF machine. Names like Ricky Johnson, David Bailey, Jeff Stanton, Jeremy McGrath, and Ricky Carmichael are the ones that jump immediately. As for MXGP, Gajser may be the outright face of Honda now from an all-time standpoint.
Gajser’s four Premier Class Championships now put him fourth all-time, behind just Roger De Coster, Antonio Cairoli, and Stefan Everts. Additionally, his five total Championships trail just Joel Roberts, then Cairoli and Everts. That is on top of Gajser’s 36 career Premier Class Grand Prix victories ranking fourth all time, and 41 total ranking sixth. All of this has been done with Honda as well for the record. Say what you want about Jeffrey Herlings not being on track for some of Gajser’s titles. Simply put, you can’t win them if you are not out there.
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Main Image via Honda HRC
