The son of French ’90s motocross star Frederic, Tom Vialle (Red Bull KTM) gave himself a late twentieth birthday present when he swept to the MX2 title in the opening moto at the MXGP of Pietramurata in early November.
• All the 2020 FIM World champions
With three races still to run – and in just his second full year in the FIM Motocross World Championship – his victory served to underline the incredible potential he displayed in 2019 when he finished fourth in his rookie season.
Plucked from the EMX250 class at the end of 2018 after finishing the series in eighth, Vialle’s debut year was nothing short of sensational as he went bar-to-bar with older, much more experienced riders and even gave his team-mate and soon-to-be champion Jorge Prado something to think about when he took the overall win at Uddevalla in Sweden.
This year, with twelve months of hard-won experience under his belt, Vialle led the MX2 championship from round two – the MXGP of The Netherlands – in March. After initially level-pegging with Jago Geerts (Monster Energy Yamaha), a double win at round seven at Faenza saw him break free of the Belgian as he began a determined push for the crown.
The statistics speak for themselves. Out of eighteen rounds Vialle finished on the podium on fourteen occasions with a total of seven overall wins, but there is more. Of the thirty-six motos staged he won fourteen of them and finished inside the top-three twenty-eight times – plus he also won the Tag Heuer Best Lap Award for MX2 and topped the Fox Holeshot MX2 category with twenty-one!
PALMARES
FIM MX2 Motocross World Champion: 2020