Pourcel then lost control of his Kawasaki after getting sideways off a jump, handing second to Townley - but the kiwi was soon overtaken by AMA team-mate Villopoto. Ryan then made a mistake, landing on the trackside netting, and was lucky to keep control. That was the chance the charging Cairoli needed and he went on to catch and pass Tedesco - much to the delighted of the crowd. Villopoto and Townley also demoted Tedesco in the closing stages to make it three 250s at the front of the field, while Belgian Steve Ramon took top MX3 honours with fourth.
"I waited five or six laps to see the lines of Villopoto and Townley. I was close to Villopoto when he made a mistake and ran off the track," said Toni. "I really like this track and the fans were incredible when they were cheering me going to the lead."
After leading much of the race Tedesco eventually slipped to sixth after a late fall, but Belgium's hopes took a much greater knock when Kevin Strijbos, a disappointing eleventh in race one, crashed in the closing stages of race two and was forced to tearfully retire with his RMZ-250's wheels cocooned in trackside netting.
"The first race was not that good, I was just too slow so I decided to go for it in the second one and pushed really hard. On the last lap I made a mistake on the jump and crashed," sighed Strijbos. "I am disappointed that I could not have done better."
The scoring system allows the worst single score to be dropped, meaning five out of the six races results are counted, but Belgium now had two finishes outside the top ten while the USA's worst was Tedesco's still creditable sixth.
