{"id":6442,"date":"2025-11-24T08:37:29","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T01:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=6442"},"modified":"2025-11-24T08:37:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T01:37:32","slug":"kellett-and-denis-on-top-at-sand-races","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/kellett-and-denis-on-top-at-sand-races\/","title":{"rendered":"Kellett and Denis on top at Sand Races"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Britain\u2019s Todd Kellett of Drag\u2019on Yamaha muscled his way to a dominant victory in the Moto class race at round four of the 2025 FIM Sand Races World Championship \u2013 the Ronde des Sables Hossegor-Capbreton, in France, underlining his status as this highly-specialised discipline\u2019s brightest star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two-and-a-half-hour race did not, however, go to plan for reigning Moto Women class champion and series leader Amandine Verstappen of Yamaha. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Belgian led her category until just after half-distance when she exited early having completed ten laps of the punishing circuit on the shores of the notoriously stormy Bay of Biscay, handing a vital championship lifeline to Mathilde Denis of Fantic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making it four wins from four starts this year, twenty-eight-year-old Kellett, who is aiming for his third consecutive title in the discipline and his first since the Moto class was elevated to full FIM World Championship status for 2025, remains on course to record his second unbeaten season in a row, despite continued strong opposition from his team-mate Milko Potisek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Frenchman was, in fact, the only other rider who could match Kellett\u2019s impressive total of twenty laps during the wind-lashed race, although even the three-time winner of the Enduropale du Touquet Pas-de-Calais crossed the line over four-and-a-half minutes behind the defending champion who could now sew up the title at the penultimate round, Portugal\u2019s Monte Gordo Sand Experience this weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kellett\u2019s lightning starts have been key all year and following the opening lap he held a slim lead from former FIM Motocross World Championship competitor Cyril Genot of Honda with third-placed Tias Callens of Yamaha already sixteen seconds off the leader\u2019s pace, although still four seconds ahead of Potisek who sat fifth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we are so used to seeing, with a clear track ahead of him Kellett\u2019s combination of speed and experience proved to be the deciding factor as lap after lap he extended his advantage over the chasing pack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Potisek moved ahead of his compatriot Matheo Miot \u2013\u00a0Yamaha into third on lap two as Callens slipped to fifth, but he needed a further twelve laps to climb into second place when Genot pulled out with just over an hour left on the clock and by this time the gap to Kellett was almost two-and-a-half minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With victory seemingly assured, Kellett stayed out of trouble and kept clicking off the laps and his fourth win of the campaign gives him a twenty-nine point lead ahead of Potisek with French rider Jeremy Hauquier of Yamaha maintaining his\u00a0third position in the title chase after finishing fourth behind Dutch racer Lars Van Berkel of Fantic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Mathilde Denis at 2025 FIM Sand Races World Championship, Ronde des Sables Hossegor-Capbreton \u00a9 Frederik Herregods Photography<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Paolo Maschio of Honda, who won last season\u2019s Moto Junior 2 title, was a fine fifth, but there was heartbreak for Norwegian racer Hakon Fredriksen, also of Honda, who was holding down a podium finish in the closing stages, but was officially classified as a non-finisher after he failed to complete his nineteenth lap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verstappen has dominated the Moto Women class since the opening round of 2024 and having started the day with maximum points, the twenty-six-year-old finished the first lap comfortably clear of her female rivals and she continued to stretch her advantage during the early stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Completing her tenth lap lying sixty-second out of the full field of over four-hundred-and-fifty riders and forty-three positions ahead of 2023 champion Denis, Verstappen was then forced to retire which hands a narrow championship lead to Denis who topped the Women category on an impressive total of fourteen laps, four more than second-placed Sara Jugla of KTM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe weather conditions were a bit tricky with quite a lot of wind,\u201d said Denis. \u201cI got a good start and then tried to manage my race as well as possible \u2013 to put in a solid run, stay smooth and consistent \u2013 and in the end everything went well.\u00a0We know it is very soft sand here so I needed to make two or three small adjustments to the bike\u2019s set-up, but nothing more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An extremely competitive Moto Veteran class was won by France\u2019s Alexis Van De Woestine of GASGAS on a total of thirteen laps, the same number as second-placed Fernando Rubio of Honda from Uruguay who extends his series lead over Nicolas Lavenant of Yamaha,\u00a0who was fourth behind Paul Barbara of KTM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Competing on a shorter course over a ninety-minute race duration earlier in the day, victory in the Moto Junior category went to Dutch racer Dean Gregoire of KTM who recorded a total of twenty-six laps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite coming home over a minute further back as the only rider on the same number of laps as the winner, France\u2019s Evan Demeester of Honda extended his lead at the top of the points table from Matheo Great \u2013 Yamaha who finished this morning\u2019s race a lap down on the leading pair in third.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Britain\u2019s Todd Kellett of Drag\u2019on Yamaha muscled his way to a dominant victory in the Moto class race<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[81],"class_list":["post-6442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-motorsport"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Podium-at-2025-FIM-Sand-Races-World-Championship-Ronde-des-Sables-Hossegor-Capbreton-\u00a9-Frederik-Herregods-Photography.jpg",1280,853,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Podium-at-2025-FIM-Sand-Races-World-Championship-Ronde-des-Sables-Hossegor-Capbreton-\u00a9-Frederik-Herregods-Photography-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Podium-at-2025-FIM-Sand-Races-World-Championship-Ronde-des-Sables-Hossegor-Capbreton-\u00a9-Frederik-Herregods-Photography-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Podium-at-2025-FIM-Sand-Races-World-Championship-Ronde-des-Sables-Hossegor-Capbreton-\u00a9-Frederik-Herregods-Photography-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Podium-at-2025-FIM-Sand-Races-World-Championship-Ronde-des-Sables-Hossegor-Capbreton-\u00a9-Frederik-Herregods-Photography-1024x682.jpg",640,426,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Podium-at-2025-FIM-Sand-Races-World-Championship-Ronde-des-Sables-Hossegor-Capbreton-\u00a9-Frederik-Herregods-Photography.jpg",1280,853,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Podium-at-2025-FIM-Sand-Races-World-Championship-Ronde-des-Sables-Hossegor-Capbreton-\u00a9-Frederik-Herregods-Photography.jpg",1280,853,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Podium-at-2025-FIM-Sand-Races-World-Championship-Ronde-des-Sables-Hossegor-Capbreton-\u00a9-Frederik-Herregods-Photography-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Podium-at-2025-FIM-Sand-Races-World-Championship-Ronde-des-Sables-Hossegor-Capbreton-\u00a9-Frederik-Herregods-Photography-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Podium-at-2025-FIM-Sand-Races-World-Championship-Ronde-des-Sables-Hossegor-Capbreton-\u00a9-Frederik-Herregods-Photography.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6445,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6442\/revisions\/6445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}