The first ITP EMX Quad European Championship of the new season 2015 came to the French region Midi Pyrenees, to Castelnau de Levis, 85 km Nord Est of Toulouse. The weather was fine and warm, up to more than 25°C on Sunday and the track was well prepared.
Qualifying
On Saturday the pole position went to the Latvian Edgars Mengelis, 0.64 sec ahead of French Yoann Gillouin, 2.1 sec in front of another French rider, Gregoire Rabat. Fifth position for the European Champion Mike van Grinsven, NED, 3.5 seconds behind the winner.
Race 1
The holeshot went to French rider Gregoire Rabat. The first heat was dominated by Andrea Cesari over the first seven laps and than by the later winner, Edgars Mengelis, who crossed the finish line 14.31 sec after Mengelis and 10.95 sec in front of Mike van Grinsven, who finished third. Over nearly the whole 30 min plus 2 laps distance, the French Yoann Gillouin held the forth position and came in as forth position and crossed the finish line in this position. The Czech rider Zdenek Polacek was alway between 6th and 9th position and came up into 5th position five laps before the end. Seventh place to Finnish Tanhuanpää in front of Dutch Marc de Vries.
Race 2
The holeshot went to the French rider Yoann Gillouin. He was in the lead for the first 3 laps until Mengelis overtook him, finishing first after 15 laps. So Gillouin took the second place. Third over the whole distance was Andrea Cesari and also place 4 and 5 were preset already in the first lap with de Cuiper, BEL, and Simone Mastronardi, the second Italian in front of Polacek, CZE. European Champion van Grinsven had a bad start (13th) and later he had technical problems with his Quad, and at the end he finished the race in 8th position.
Overall winner of the day was Edgars Mengelis, LAT, (50 pts.) in front of Andrea Cesari, ITA, (42 pts) and Yoann Gillouin, Frau, (40 pts.) (in the photo).
The next race will be in Gazzana di Preseglie, Italy, May 2/3.
