Jeffrey Herlings is completely back! The motocross rider from Oploo had to go a long way after a knee injury, but won a Grand Prix again last weekend. Herlings was of course happy, but the bar is actually much higher. Next season he wants to become a world champion again. The question is still with which team.
His return at the highest level actually goes exactly as Jeffrey Herlings predicted in advance. He had to let the first three games of the season shoot and the subsequent five GPs used the five -time world champion to join the top again.
Herlings finished fourth in France last week and last weekend he won in Germany. “After two months of driving, that actually went very quickly,” says Herlings. “It’s nice to be back now.”
“Every victory can be the last one, but I just do my thing.”
The knee injury, on which he was operated on last year, seems almost forgotten. The win in Teutschental was also his 108th GP victory, an improvement in the record that Herlings itself had. However, Herlings did not have much more than a feeling of feeling.
“I feel joy on the inside,” says the Brabant motocross player. “But otherwise I am quite cautious about that. The first time I won another GP after an injury, I was still emotional in it. Now, after fifteen years, I have experienced that much more often. I no longer make any somersaults of joy and the polonaise I don’t run either.”
“Maybe that’s a shame, because I train hard every day,” he continues. “And every victory can also be the last one. But I have won a GP and it is not more. I just do my thing.”
“Only when I become world champion again, do I also walk the polonaise again.”
After no less than 108 GP victories, that feeling may also be logical. But Herlings is and remains a real winner and it is still keen to sharpen his record. In fact, the ambitions reach much further.
“Only when I become world champion again, do I also walk the polonaise again,” he says. “But that will not happen this year. I am now in ten place and for that the gap with the numbers one and two is too big. So that must happen next year.”
Whether that is KTM at his current employer is not yet clear. That chance is a bit greater, because the Austrian builder of motorcycles recently escaped bankruptcy. His contract ends at the end of the season.
“Now there will soon be movement in the market and my GP victory in Germany is coming at the right time,” laughs Herlings. “But I can’t say anything about next year. Whether I want to stay with KTM? Uhm, it’s a team in itself yes. But in the past the engine stood up with the head and shoulders, but those of other teams are now also good. I am a bit neutral in it and finally just do what I feel good about.”
“I hope to be third this year.”
But first finish this season. There are still ten games to go and next weekend Jeffrey Herlings has to go to Latvia again. “Because I missed three games, the world title is out of sight, but I hope to be third this year,” says the Motocrosser from Oploo. “That is realistic, although I can also finish sixth or eighth. And I also go for the day successes.”
“Well, in the end only one place counts and that is the first. But if that is going to happen, it will have to happen next year.” Fortunately, Jeffrey Herlings predictions often come true.