Round 6 of the FIM Motocross World Championship visited Russia earlier this week, with the races being held on a Tuesday around International Workers' Day.

Coming off his first podium of the season in Portugal, HRC's Tim Gajser was looking to keep the momentum rolling. IceOne Husqvarna was back to full strength as Max Anstie returned from injury to join Gautier Paulin who is experiencing another strong campaign in 2018. Calvin Vlaanderen was our only MX2 pilot of the weekend, as the 114 Motorsports outfit sat idle with Hunter Lawrence & Bas Vaessen both injured. Lawrence will look to return at Round 7 in Latvia and Vaessen will be a few weeks longer. Our EMX 250 athletes were also back in action in Orlyonok, with Danish youth sensation Mikkel Haarup under the IceOne umbrella and German Jeremy Sydow on a private KTM effort. 

Tim Gajser got off to a strong start in Timed Practice as he set the fastest time in the session. Gautier Paulin was just a little over a second off in 3rd position, and Max Anstiewas 8th fastest. On the MX2 side, Calvin Vlaanderen was 6th fastest aboard his HRC machine. 

Vlaanderen had his best Qualifying Race performance of the season, earning himself 3rd spot on the grid for the motos. Anstie was 8th in the MXGP Quali Race, with Paulin10th. An early crash for Gajser had him starting in dead last, but the Slovenian was able to climb his way up to 14th at the end. 

Jeremy Sydow got off to a great start in EMX 250 Moto #1 as he grabbed the holeshot and led the opening lap. Unfortunately he would run into some bad luck and go down early on. Mikkel Haarup also had a solid start, running in 4th before he crashed as well and finished up 12th. Haarup got a tough start in Moto #2, but clawed his way up to 10th at the end for 11th Overall. 

Calvin Vlaanderen was 7th off the start in MX2 Moto #1 and rode a consistent race to finish up in 6th. The South African started off 7th again in Moto #2, but worked his way up to 4th this time. 6-4 Moto scores were good for 6th Overall and he now sits 6th in the Overall Points Standings. 

Gautier Paulin got off to a good start in MXGP Moto #1, taking the green flag in 4th. The consistent Frenchman would finish the race in 4th where he started, and Tim Gajser came from a 7th place start up to 5th. Max Anstie began his return to the races with a tough start back in 20th, but was able to work his way forward to 15th despite fighting off some arm pump. 

MXGP Moto #2 started in a positive way for Gajser as he sat in 3rd on the opening lap. The HRC lead man ended up 4th, going 5-4 for 5th Overall. Gautier Paulin was not so lucky and went down early on, putting him dead last on the opening lap. He put in an impressive charge however, and pushed all the way to 6th place which salvaged 6th Overall with 4-6 Moto scores. Max Anstie struggled with arm pump again in Moto #2 and ended up 16th Overall on the day. 

MX2 Championship Standings

1. Pauls Jonass
2. Jorge Prado
3. Thomas Kjer Olsen
4. Ben Watson
5. Jed Beaton
6. Calvin Vlaanderen
7. Vsevolod Brylyakov
8. Conrad Mewse
9. Henry Jacobi
10. Thomas Covington

MXGP Championship Standings

1. Jeffrey Herlings
2. Antonio Cairoli
3. Clement Desalle
4. Romain Febvre
5. Gautier Paulin
6. Glenn Coldenhoff
7. Jeremy Van Horebeek
8. Tim Gajser
9. Jeremy Seewer
10. Julien Lieber

The circuit rolls on with Round 7 at the Kegums circuit in Latvia on May 13th. 

World Cup DH#2, Fort William: This race never disappoints! Fort William - Round two of the UCI Downhill World Cup series. This place always delivers an amazing show and we had plenty of great action for this edition! Our riders absolutely killed it, Tahnee Seagrave won, Loris Vergier and Loïc Bruni finished 2nd and 5th! Check out all the Fox Head riders' reactions here:

Tahnee, 1st Women

This is her first victory of the year and the first time she has won at Fort William! She has been dreaming of it for ages and has proved she is fit and she'll fight for more wins this year. She is now 3rd in the overall: “This feels different to my other wins - it's at home, the crowd is gnarly, and it's a hard track to win on as well - I think I've ticked off the hardest one so I'm very happy with that! And now, on to Leogang. I think the girls are going to be pushing so hard this year so anyone could win it. It's faster and the times are always so tight so I'm excited! I've had a real bad week so for me to come out and that happen, I wasn't expecting it. It's amazing!”

Loris Vergier, 2nd Elite Men

He was so so close to 1st place, only 0.270 seconds back but still super happy! He is definitely one of the strongest riders this year and now stands 2nd place overall, only 4 points behind the leader: “I was a little bit disappointed and it really sucked what happened to Luca (his team mate), but I suppose that is racing. Other than that, it was a cool race. The fast guys were going all out and the guys who really deserved it, like Mo-mo (Amaury Pierron) stole the show and he took the win. I was almost going to cry, it was crazy! And Loïc (Bruni) was there at the podium like 'Hi guys, I'm back!' And I had a look at the general classification and it is scary! I'm 4 points behind Aaron Gwin, in 2nd place! It is all so crazy and I am really happy!”.

Loïc Bruni, 5th Elite Men

He got injured at the first round in Croatia with a dislocated elbow and has worked really hard to get back for this race. He was careful with his elbow all week, with lots of time on the massage table so he could give his best on race day. A 5th place, only 2.587 seconds behind the winner is an incredible comeback! He said: “There were so many times when I wasn't sure I would be able to ride this weekend. Even just last week, I was stiff with a painful arm and had had no riding time so I had no idea how it was going to be.  I wasn't riding to win, I wasn't riding to come 5th, I was just riding to get down in one piece. So I was really happy with my result and above all absolutely over the moon for Amaury!”

Fearon Connor, 13th Elite Men

He came 7th in Qualis and put in a solid run for Finals. He came 13th but only +3.922 back from the winner: “Yeah, I was happy with my run, just a bit further back than I wanted to be. The times are so close - I was under 4 seconds off 1st place so it just goes to show how tight everyone was - that was all the way back in 13th. I was happy with the run, just it would have been good to be one or two seconds quicker here. As for next week, I've always done well at Leogang - I got the 2nd there in 2015 and I haven't been out of the top ten for the past 3 or 4 years or something, so yeah, I'm looking forward to Leogang. It's early next week so not long to wait, everyone's driving over and I think the race will be exciting there as well”.

Laurie Greenland, 16th Elite Men

Not the result he was looking for but it is still very good and he has learnt a lot this weekend! He's now 10th overall which is great: “I was pretty nervous actually, it's really weird. I normally pride myself on being quite head-strong for racing but I was actually a bit nervous. I rode it a bit tight out the gate, braked hard in the top few turns, something I didn't do through the whole of practice and then kicked myself a bit for that. I found the flow and got into it and then started pushing on a bit too much because I knew my top was not as good as I would have liked. So I pushed on a bit too hard and started getting a bit loose and made a few mistakes. It still kind of surprised me, on a day like today I can still come down in 16th but yeah, not happy. I learnt a lot today though so that's all that matters really. As for Leogang, I just like racing. Last year, I was in the mindset of liking one track and maybe not the other. But I like racing my bike, so while I obviously prefer some tracks more than others, I am pretty keen for whatever race comes and keen for whatever it throws at me!”.

Finn Iles, 19th Elite men

This is his first-year racing Elite and he is still learning. His results are impressive and we can't wait to see him riding the rest of the season: “I felt really good all weekend leading up to my race run, well, leading up to this morning. And then this morning I felt a bit stiff on my bike and I still felt pretty fast but when my race run came around, the only thought I had in my head was that I wanted to win. I think I took the wrong approach a bit to the race - because I felt so good on my bike yesterday, I needed to keep that same mindset of just riding and having fun. But today I took it a bit too seriously almost, and I think I was just too focused on trying to win instead of just trying to ride my bike. I ended up riding really stiff and making stupid mistakes and breaking in bad spots and I ended up 6 seconds back but I still pretty happy with that and it is my first top 20. For sure, my goal this year is to win a world cup - if you are racing, you are here to win - if anyone tells you different they are probably lying or just trying to be modest. That is the ultimate goal but I think I need to become a better rider first or just better at racing against the big guys like Loïc and Amaury and Loris. It takes time. I'm really excited!'

All the teams left Scotland yesterday and are heading down to Leogang (Austria). We're already super excited for this one!