In the final round of the FIM Motocross World Championships in Lierop, Holland Pembury born Tommy Searle made it another top eight finish.

Searle finished sixth overall after taking a seventh in race one and an eighth in race two to net him 27 points for the weekend.

It means that Searle finished the MX1 season in sixth place, with 487 points, the Championship was won by Antonio Cairoli with an impressive 761 points.

Team CLS Monster Energy Kawasaki Pro Circuit’s Tommy Searle was handicapped by a poor start in the first moto and faced a long hard ride from seventeenth place on the opening lap to finish seventh on a track made even more difficult by the overnight rain. He made a better start in race two and held seventh place for most of the moto before being passed late in the race by Gautier Paulin. The Englishman finished sixth overall to retain the same position in the final series ranking.

Gautier Paulin of the Kawasaki Racing Team is still recovering from a heavy concussion suffered at the end of July and rode sensibly to score as many points as possible whilst avoiding any incident which might set back his recovery. He maintained ninth place throughout the first moto and snatched seventh place in the closing laps of race two to give him seventh overall in the GP and fifth in the final championship standings.

Teammate Jeremy Van Horebeek made an excellent start in the opening moto but a fall on the opening lap left him to battle from the rear of the field to finish sixth. Another great start in race two saw him complete the opening lap third, but falls cost him several positions and he eventually finished tenth. These results gave him eighth place overall on the day and seventh place in the final championship standings of his rookie season of MX1 GP racing.

Speaking after the racing was finished, Tommy Searle said: “This track is always tough, and I finished seventh and sixth in the two motos. I can’t’ be really happy with these results, but in the first moto the track was more enduro than motocross! Maybe I need to come and work on my sand technique a little bit more often; if it had been important for the championship I would have done it but it has been a long season and I came here just to do my best. The season is over now; we need to make a lot of improvements on our setup and we’ll do that this winter.”