AXO riders displayed great performances at the Motocross of Nations, which is the biggest and most prestigious off-road motorcycle race in the world. After 23 years, the race came back to Italy and it was a big success, as 90.000 people over two days crowded the brand new circuit at Franciacorta, 20 Km east from Brescia.

Gautier Paulin and Steve Ramon helped their Team to conquer the second and the third step of the podium of the event and only a crash in the second race prevented Davide Guarneri, who was competing for the Team Italy, to clinch another good result after placing fourth overall in the MX2 World Championship.

Another big crash in the third final saw Gautier Paulin hit the dirt right after the start: the French star, after winning the second heat, was involved in a pile up at the first corner and was carried to the hospital for further examinations, with pain in his back and ribs, which prevented him to be on the podium with his team-mates.

Steve Ramon: "I think we had a good team and a chance to win but we made some mistakes. I wanted two good motos today but in the first one I crashed and had to come through. I was struggling a little bit with the track. In the second moto my start was good and I was following Ryan but he was slightly faster; I was happy with second place and that it helped us to the podium. The goal was to win, but as we have seen, many things can happen at the Motocross of Nations."

In this intense week end of racing, Bradley Smith took the third step of the podium of the GP of Portugal at Estoril, while team mate Julian Simon was only 12^th after a crashing when he was leading. Good result for Chris Vermeulen in MotoGP, too: the Aussie ended his race in 10^th spot after starting from 15^th on the grid.

Bradley Smith: "It is obvious that victory would have been an option had I been able to slipstream Pol, but it wasn't to be. My plan was to stick behind him and pull out on the line, but on the last lap Cortese got in between us and closed up. I am satisfied with the result, especially on a day in which so many other guys fell. I was lucky not to go down when Terol crashed. I had a good pace, even though we had lost a lot of time on day one with the crash in practice, so I owe a lot to the team for their work this weekend. They were speedy in preparing the bike to perfection for me despite the time constraints. We were able to finish off the weekend with a podium, which is good when you consider that Portugal is not one of my best tracks. We are a little too far from the title, but we are in a good spot to finish high up in the standings and I know that I can go well in Australia. We have taken a step forward this weekend, so I hope that this continues at Phillip Island."

Thank you guys!