World champ Jorge Prado romped to a double win in the sand of the Sardinian MXGP at Riola Sardo despite being challenged by Tim Gajser and Jeffrey Herlings in both motos.

In the opener, Prado gates second but was soon past holeshot man Jeremy Seewer, followed by Gajser who did the same. The Honda man chased the champ for the whole race, coming with a couple of seconds of the Spanish ace. But with three laps remaining, Prado upped the pace to it to pull away for a decisive win.

Herlings, riding in pain from a rib injury after a crash in yesterday’s practice, pulled through from a mediocre start to take third. Also pulling through the pack was Romain Febvre who came through to sixth. Ben Watson took a great ninth place with Adam Sterry 17th and Todd Kellett 21st.

In the second race, Prado holeshot but Herlings was right behind him and Gajser soon moved into third place.

Fior the first half of the race, Prado and Herlings were close together but then Herlings lost the front. Gajser slid by and the KTM man remounted in a distant third. Gajser ccouldn’t reel in Prado who took the win to extend his series lead to 17 points after just three rounds, from Gajser then Herlings.

Watson took 12th and Kellett 16th, one spot in front of Sterry.

In MX2, Sacha Coenen led the opener from Husky team-mate Kay de Wolf who blasted by and held the lead for most of the moto. Coenen chased him hard and the pressure got to de Wolf as the Belgian nipped by to take the win. And third was Camden McLellan on the Triumph, while his team-mate Mikkel Haarup had a terrible opening lap but came through to fifth, one spot behind world champ Andrea Adamo.

In the second race, de Wolf led on the first lap and started to pull away. Lucas Coenen had a poor start but carved through to second then fell while pressuring de Wolf for the lead. Simon Langenfelder held second but Coenen managed to steal the place.

World champ Andrea Adamo was third overall but then was disqualified and loses 20 championship points. He ran off the track in and rode down the pit-lane to re-join the race but didn’t come to a halt in the pit lane, so that’s a rule infringement.

That moved McLellan up to fifth in which was enough for third overall, his first MX2 GP podium and Triumph’s second in its third GP.

Brit Bobby Bruce was wiped out in the first corner of the opening moto and didn’t score.