Monster Energy Triumph Racing’s Mikkel Haarup has delivered two impressive rides at round seven of the 2024 FIM MX2 Motocross World Championship to secure sixth overall. The result moves the Danish rider up to seventh in the MX2 championship standings.
Conditions at Saint Jean d’Angely were horrendous on Saturday for qualifying. With the track delivering a serious challenge for all competitors, consistency and minimising mistakes would be key to a strong qualifying result. In placing a solid eighth, Mikkel set himself up well for Sunday’s two intense motos.
Firing his TF 250-X out of the gate well in race one, Haarup placed seventh at the end of the first lap. Finding his rhythm on the technical track, the 22-year-old steadily made his way forward, climbing up to third place by lap 13. Unfortunately, a couple of small errors cost him a few places and a potential podium, and Mikkel was forced to settle for fifth at the chequered flag.
Although the weather held for the start of race two, the rain arrived towards the end, making the track super-treacherous for the final few laps. Following another strong start, Haarup lay third early on lap one and was challenging hard for a place inside the top two. Making a pass for second, Mikkel tagged the rider ahead and went down. Despite recovering quicky, he had dropped down to 11th by the end of lap two. From there, the Monster Energy Triumph Racing star put in an impressive ride through the worsening conditions to fight his way back through the pack and ultimately claim sixth.
With his 5-6 results, Haarup secured a well-deserved sixth place overall, earning himself 31 valuable championship points – enough to elevate him to seventh in the series standings. Mikkel and Monster Energy Triumph Racing will return to MX2 action on June 1-2 for the MXGP of Germany in Teutschenthal.
Mikkel Haarup: “A solid weekend here in France, we’ve been pushing and improving things all weekend. We improved our starts – in the first moto we got out of the gate well and worked our way up into third place. I was there for a long time but made a couple mistakes and lost a few positions, so I finished fifth. I got off to a good start in the second moto and was back and forth with second, but I went for a pass on the second lap and went down. I picked the bike up, made some passes and made my way back up to sixth position. All in all, it was a solid weekend. We’re going to change some things for the next round but we’re feeling good and excited for Germany!”
Vincent Bereni – Monster Energy Triumph Racing Team Manager: “The French Grand Prix was quite complicated let’s say, we had only one rider so it’s a lot of pressure on him to deliver. It’s almost a home Grand Prix for us because a lot of people in the team are French and the owner Thierry is also French. Mikkel had a good day yesterday, even though the conditions were super-rough. He managed to come back through the pack to P8 in the qualifying race. Today the first moto was going okay, he was in P3 for quite a long time but then he made a little mistake and ended up P5. In the second moto, the strategy was to go for it from the off and he made a really good start, he was in the top three at the first corner and was well in the battle for a top-five finish. He crashed on the second lap and had to make his way through the pack again. I’m glad we made the decision to go for it because we have to take risks to make the difference and he fell while giving his all, so that’s positive.”
Results – MXGP of France
MX2 Race 1
1. Lucas Coenen (Husqvarna) 35:26.564
2. Andrea Adamo (KTM) 35:36.709
3. Kay de Wolf (Husqvarna) 35:43.052
4. Simon Langenfelder (GASGAS) 35:50.120
5. Mikkel Haarup (Triumph) 35:56.805
6. Liam Everts (KTM) 36:14.025
MX2 Race 2
1. Lucas Coenen (Husqvarna) 34:49.450
2. Kay de Wolf (Husqvarna) 35:13.617
3. Simon Langenfelder (GASGAS) 35:19.299
4. Andrea Adamo (KTM) 35:25.145
5. Liam Everts (KTM) 35:28.161
6. Mikkel Haarup (Triumph) 35:53.431
MX2 Overall
1. Lucas Coenen (Husqvarna) 50pts
2. Kay de Wolf (Husqvarna) 42pts
3. Andrea Adamo (KTM) 40pts
4. Simon Langenfelder (GASGAS) 38pts
5. Liam Everts (KTM) 31pts
6. Mikkel Haarup (Triumph) 31pts
MX2 World Championship Standings
1. Kay de Wolf (Husqvarna) 342pts
2. Simon Langenfelder (GASGAS) 290pts
3. Lucas Coenen (Husqvarna) 283pts
4. Liam Everts (KTM) 268pts
5. Andrea Adamo (KTM) 257pts
6. Thibault Benistant (Yamaha) 226pts
7. Mikkel Haarup (Triumph) 216pts
10. Camden McLellan (Triumph) 126pts
Words by Monster Energy Triumph Racing – Images by Ray Archer
