GP of Bulgaria After a hard fought second moto at the MXGP of Bulgaria, Team Assomotor Honda’s Mathys Boisrame took the race victory, the overall and most importantly the title of 2018 EMX250 champion.
Heading into the weekend with a lead of 18 points, Mathys extended that to 40 points after a comfortable second place finish in Saturday evening’s first race. This meant that he had to place 10 points ahead of his closest competitor in order to seal the championship before the final round in Assen. Pulling yet another holeshot on his Honda CRF250R helped him get off to the perfect start and as chaos reigned behind him, Mathys remained calm in the knowledge that he was doing everything he could to get the gold plate a round early.
As the race drew on, pressure mounted as his lead came under threat but Mathys was resilient until the end, holding off the challenge and crossing the line to take his sixth moto win, his fifth overall and his first European 250 championship. It was joyous moment for the young French rider who doesn’t come from a background of success, but who has gelled with the Honda CRF250R extremely well this year and together with a strong Assomotor team behind him and a family supporting throughout this rollercoaster campaign, he has grown into one of Europe’s top talents.
He struggled at the opening round in Spain, scoring just eight points in the two motos, but at the second round in Portugal he catapulted himself back into title contention with a one-one performance. An average display in Russia was then followed by another overall victory in Latvia, and then another one a couple of rounds later at his home GP in France where he first got a hold of the red plate. Unfortunately his results at the deep sand track of Lommel closed the championship points gap down to two, but overall victories at Switzerland and now Bulgaria meant that he got the 50 point differential he needed to win the EMX250 championship a round early, a round in which he can now run a fully deserved gold plate.
This is Honda’s second success in the EMX250 championship after Nick Kouwenberg won the title in 2015 and is further proof of the strength of the all-new 2018 Honda CRF250R. Mathys and Apico Factory Racing’s Steven Clarke have won more overalls than any other brand, pulled numerous holeshots and now also lead the manufacturers championship.
