The Motocross World Championship enters one of the busiest parts of its season as the series heads to Latvia for the first of five rounds to take place in the upcoming six weekends. After a trip of mixed emotions to Russia, Tim Gajser is ready for the new event knowing he has the speed to fight for strong results, following his delayed start to the season. Calvin Vlaanderen is setting his sights on the podium at a track that saw him third overall last year. The young South African rider had a strong performance on race day last time out, as he came less than a second short of third place at the MXGP of Russia.

After the back to back rounds in Italy and the Netherlands, the MXGP series took a weekend off before heading to the Baltic nation of Latvia for this seventh round of the Motocross World Championship, held at the Kegums facility just south of Riga. This weekend, the Suzuki World team of Arminas Jasikonis, Jeremy Seewer, Hunter Lawrence, Bas Vaessen and Zach Pichon is almost at full capacity and looking forward to the challenge, with only Kevin Strijbos absent due to his recently sustained elbow injury. The whole squad have been working hard in the break to try and keep their level up with some riders choosing to ride at the German ADAC national race, whilst others stayed away in order to rest or work on other aspects of their riding. First of all we had some tyre testing with Pirelli which went well and is pretty positive for the future. Then we did some suspension testing for a couple of days, just to improve on some points and gain those extra few percentages to bring us to the next level.

Wondering what to do in Riga? Last week we talked about why you should visit Latvia. Read next: Why you should visit Latvia right now. I never ran out of things to do while I was there!

Situated approximately 50 kilometers South-East of the Latvian capital, Riga, the Zelta-Zirgs circuit is relatively young. After an enormous crash at the Russian Grand Prix only days ago, Paulin looks forward to lining up healthier in Latvia this weekend. Before the accident, the Frenchman was firing on all cylinders. Fortunately, he was not hurt and was able to score enough points to retain third position in the MXGP Championship Standings. It was back to work during the week for the young YZFM rider who is determined to keep chipping away at the top-three in the Championship Classification.