Scorching hot temperatures couldn’t stop Ben Townley from scoring his second double GP victory, in as many events, at Sunday’s Grand Prix of France at St Jean d'Angely.
However, Townley also helped make KTM history since his result - along with MX2 victory for David Philippaerts - gave the Austrian marque their first 'perfect' MX1/MX2 GP weekend.
Townley’s win marked the third GP success of his rookie MX1 season, but he was forced to earn his race one win in particular, after fighting back from the lower reaches of the top ten.
BT would catch race and world championship leader Stefan Everts on the fourteenth circulation, and five laps later passed the eight-times world champion. Fellow Kiwi Josh Coppins and home hero Mickael Pichon would complete the moto one top four.
The second race was easier for Townley, who grabbed the holeshot and led the entire moto.
"This has been a great weekend for KTM as they also won in the road racing and we won both the MX1 and MX2 classes here in St Jean," smiled Ben. "I'm happy at the moment that my level has improved enough to win. I now need to fight to try and get second off of Josh in the championship.
"At the moment I’m taking it race by race and it’s going really well. In the last few weeks we have made a lot of improvement on the bike after Japan. If we can keep going like this there is no reason why I can’t fight for second in the championship and even Stefan might make some mistakes," he added. "I want to thank team who has been working so hard week in and week out.
"The track layout of was great and the changes that they made were also really good. Even though we had some rain the track guys did a sufficient amount of work to make sure there were some passing lines - I think they did a great job," BT concluded.
Second at the beginning of race two, Everts crashed heavily and had to stop to the pits with a damaged fork, front brake and handle bar; he returned in 28th but fought back to seventh at the flag.
