All roads led to Spain for the Gabriel SS24 KTM Factory Juniors team and the opening round of the European Championship at Cózar.
Words by Gabriel SS24 KTM – Images courtesy of Juan Pablo Acevedo
Both riders, Max Werner and Gyan Doensen, and the team put in the work over the off-season and felt prepared to kick off the year. However, Mother Nature had other plans for the weather, making it a difficult weekend of racing for all involved.
With schedule changes to the timetable, the EMX riders had their free and timed practice sessions combined. When trying to time the session to put in the hot lap at the start of timed practice, Gyan was what we thought was the first rider to do so, but unfortunately, the time didn’t register. The track quickly deteriorated, and it was difficult to put a clean lap together. The session finished with Max qualifying 17th and Gyan taking 40th.
In race one, both boys got out of the start safely and were within the top 15. Gyan started to steadily make his way forward to within the top 10. A mistake on lap 8 and some final lap battles would see him finish in 11th place. For Max, he had some consistent opening laps, but too many mistakes and crashes cost him positions, and he would eventually finish in 21st.
Max had a great start in race two starting in 4th, he battled throughout the race in the slick, difficult conditions to finish 5th. Gyan wasn’t so lucky on the start where he crashed and had to come from the back. He made good progress and capitilised well to come back to a solid 9th place!
Gyan finished the weekend 11th overall with Max in 14th.
Although the results were not what we had hoped for at the start of our season campaign, both boys made the most of the cards they had been dealt. Especially considering the weather and track conditions, they kept pushing on. It’s a long season where anything can happen!
Max: “My first EMX race this year for 2025 in Cozar is done. To be honest I struggled all weekend with myself. Saturday in timed practice I made a small mistake by going too early, so the first lap didn’t count. I needed to do another lap which was almost impossible so only managed P17.
“First race I had a good start but then made too many mistakes and crashes, I just went backwards and finished P21.
Second race I had a good start, in top 5, and stayed in the top 5 until the last lap. Riding was good, I stayed on the bike but we’re still not where we want to be. No excuses, we need to work harder and we know now what we need to work on. We will be back in a weeks time in France.”
Gyan: “My EMX250 debut is over, was a difficult weekend. We had a lot of rain but nevertheless qualifying wasn’t the best. They didn’t register my first time from the first lap because there is a delay between free and timed practice but we didn’t know as usually the sessions are not together. It would have been a good lap as I had two purple sectors. I went out again, crashed on the start straight so everything was full of mud and then crashed another 2-3 times in the session but the last lap saved me having P40. I had to start on the inside on both motos, first moto I let everyone go and came from the back, riding was going well but some stupid mistakes and a little crash cost me. Riding felt good, I was fast, riding top 5 times. It wasn’t about the speed this weekend, just didn’t have the luck on my side in qualifying which didn’t give me the perfect starts but I think when we execute the starts I can be up front and that’s what we will work for, so a big thank you to my team, all the mechanics. They worked hard all weekend in the rain and mud. We’re ready to move on!”
Team Manager Shaun Simpson: “Coming into this weekend obviously everyone was very excited to start the EMX championship for 2025.
“We have high expectations for this season where we want to be one of the teams with two riders riding up front. My goal for this weekend was definitely to have both riders in or around the top five. Unfortunately, that never played out, but that was due to a lot of circumstances. The main one being the weather, the track, the paddock and everything was a bit chaotic to say the least.
“The rain wasn’t on anyone’s side, and this is motocross, same for everyone. Qualifying didn’t go to plan, lesson learnt and we move on. Max had a bit of a disastrous first moto which was a little bit disappointing, going from in the top six all the way back to 21st, too many mistakes. After a bad qualifying Gyan had to come right through the pack in both motos, showed he was fit, strong and speed was there. So with better qualifying and starts I’m pretty sure he can run in the top 5 easily enough.
“Max was a different rider in the second moto, it was a good strong and calculated finish to put a positive spin on the end of his weekend. We will fine tune a couple of things for next weekend where I’d like to see both our riders put in two solid performances.
“Big thanks to all of our sponsors and a huge shout out to mechanics for their hard work this weekend, team work makes the dream work.”
