Everts on Cairoli: Talking Records

With Red Bull KTM Factory Racing rider Antonio Cairoli entering his 19^th season as a Grand Prix rider, you have to remember while the Italian is now a veteran of the sport, he is still capable of putting together GP wins, podium finishes and major points in a season. He proved it in 2020 when he finished third in the MXGP FIM Motocross World Championship and won himself three GPs.

While his body has started letting him down, we all know that Cairoli will be in amongst the major points again in 2021. Of course, the Sicilian rider is still chasing the greatest GP rider of all time Stefan Everts when it comes to most GP wins and most world titles, and we decided to ask Everts a few things about his good friend.

“He is the completely different personality to me,” Everts said. “How he takes care and handles things. For me, he has always been a fantastic ambassador for the motocross and for some riders or kids, they don’t want to spend the time with the press or media and that is sad. I think it is important and our sport is small, and we need to promote it, and take the maximum out of it.”

What impressed Everts the most about Cairoli was how organised he was in his preparation and how well he put his weekend together. Everts was also a master at being organised, but even he was surprised by the then young Italian rider.

“What I noticed, when we brought him to KTM, his game, what he had sorted it out, how he worked and dealt with everything. It took me so many more years to get to that point, but I saw Tony had that organised much earlier and for me it took a long time. When I won my fourth championship, I still didn’t have my system figured out, but the last years I had figured out the system, how to prepare, how to ride and also mentally, but Tony had that very quickly organised. That is also one of the reasons he got so many championships”.

And as for who is the greatest Grand Prix rider of all time, is it Everts, or is it Cairoli. The 10-time World Motocross Champion with 101 GP wins as always was modest in his appraisal of Cairoli.

“People forget, that is normal as we get older, but then some media comes along and writes these stories about me and reminds people. You know, to be honest I never knew I won 11 races at the Nations and I did know we won five times as a team, and we lost a couple we should have won, it could have been seven wins, but I am not so busy with the statistics anymore. I mean, who has nine, who has 10, who wins more GPs, I don’t really care that much anymore. I said it before, I have no problem if Tony also wins 10 championships. Maybe another strong kids from the future, Prado maybe stacks up championships.”

So, while the chances of an Antonio Cairoli World Championship victory in 2021 are slimmer than maybe 10 years ago, or even five years ago, nobody counts the Italian out of breaking some records in 2021, not even the man he is chasing for those records.

Photo Credit: Ray Archer