Dylan Ferrandis was off to a solid start in the 2023 SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX) season. In the first three main events of the season, the French native recorded finishes of 4-6-5 before things went downhill in Houston, Texas. In a racing incident in the main event, Ferrandis landed on the back of Ken Roczen’s Suzuki RM-Z450 and slammed down to the ground hard, causing a red flag and restart. Ferrandis hit his head and entered concussion protocol but was otherwise okay. He returned at the eighth round for the Daytona Supercross, but crashed during Friday’s press day session. He did not race the following day and would go to France to undergo testing as his supercross season would end prematurely.
Sometimes, top riders like Ferrandis are ready to return for supercross, physically, but choose not to in order to focus on motocross prep. That was not the case for Ferrandis. He was actually quite late getting back on the bike, and he and his team admitted they did not have all the time they wanted or needed to get ready for round one.
At the AMA Pro Motocross Championship opener over the weekend, Ferrandis rode home a solid 3-3 for third overall. Despite still working back up to race pace, Ferrandis and his crew were rather pleased with the top-five result. In the post-race press conference afterwards, the 2021 450 Class Pro Motocross Champion provided some insight on his concussion recovery in France, which was a four-week process to work with a specialist on his eyes. He are his answers from the press conference, hosted by Broc Glover.
Dylan, 2021 champion. Your third start of the year. Is that what this is? Your third gate drop of the season? How many starts have you had?
Dylan Ferrandis: I did only four races in supercross, so that’s not much.
![Dylan Ferrandis]()
Dylan Ferrandis Align Media ![Ferrandis and Chase Sexton]()
Ferrandis and Chase Sexton Align Media ![Ferrandis]()
Ferrandis Align Media ![Ferrandis finished 3-3 for third overall at the 2023 Pro Motocross season opener in California.]()
Ferrandis finished 3-3 for third overall at the 2023 Pro Motocross season opener in California. Align Media
Tell us how you felt out there getting back to where you were past champion, the last time you were here racing at Pala, you were actually the champion in 2021. Tell us how you felt out there to get your leg over 30-minute motos.
It seems long time ago to me, but obviously coming back from injury is never easy. You can be champ, but injury is injury. You have to rebuild yourself. You have to come back and try again, so it’s what I did. For sure, I’m very happy to be here but a little bit surprised also. The last few weeks have been very tough for the team and myself. We’ve been struggling a little bit with the bike. That new chassis Yamaha 2023 was way better in supercross, but more difficult in motocross, at least for me. So, we had to try a lot. Again today every session we tried stuff on the bike. So, obviously my first session was terrible with P13 in practice. Then we just improved session after session. So, I'm very happy. Very thankful for all the big work from the guys in the team. I'm lucky they work this hard because the way it was this morning, I would have never finished on the box today. So, I think now we can move on and build more pace and try to be more performance. Try to be more confident on the bike and improve my pace, my fitness and everything, and just improve myself race after race.
How long have you been testing the new bike and the chassis? I know having ridden both, they’re quite different motorcycles but I just wondered. Did you feel like you came in with not enough testing under you belt for the outdoors and you needed more testing?
Yeah, the thing is we got this new bike last year but the first thing we did was supercross. We prepped since September we rode in supercross with it. We never did any motocross session, any testing in motocross. So, for motocross we start from zero. As soon as I got back on the bike after my concussion and all the rehab I did, I think I rode six or five weeks from now. At the beginning you just want to get back to the pace and just ride a little easy at the beginning. As soon as the pace was back, we start some testing. But we had so much to do and so much to learn that it was pretty intense. Like I said, even between the motos we changed stuff today to try and test the bike and see what was going on. So, it’s not easy. New bike is never easy, especially being the only one in a team. No teammate to try with me, so it’s difficult but obviously we made it work.
Fox Raceway - 450
May 27, 2023| Rider | Hometown | Motos | Bike | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Jett Lawrence | Landsborough, Australia  | 1 - 1 | Honda CRF450R |
| 2 |  Chase Sexton | La Moille, IL  | 2 - 2 | Honda CRF450R |
| 3 |  Dylan Ferrandis | Avignon, France  | 3 - 3 | Yamaha YZ450F |
| 4 |  Aaron Plessinger | Hamilton, OH | 5 - 4 | KTM 450 SX-F |
| 5 |  Cooper Webb | Newport, NC | 4 - 5 | KTM 450 SX-F |
On Thursday I think you kind of suggested you didn’t want to do anything silly today. You wanted to kind of race within your ability. How important was it to have an incident-free race and still get a pair of thirds?
It’s good. It’s a good feeling. Obviously you don’t want to do any big mistakes at the first round, so it was good. Clean day. No crashes, so I'm very happy. That’s what I wanted to do.
Obviously to get this result on the podium to start strongly in terms of points, good result but what is it going to take from you from this point to really look at the two ahead [Jett Lawrence and Chase Sexton] and try and close that gap?
Just feel good on the bike. Before today we didn’t have much days where I was focused on doing long motos or work on my speed. We were just focused on testing. So, I didn’t even make much motos during the last five weeks. So now we have a good setup, I think. We can try some more stuff a little bit, but I can just focus on my speed, my moto in practice. When you don’t think about how to improve your bike and you just focus on you and try to be faster, the pace gets a bit better, the fitness gets a bit better. I think right now that’s what I need to do during the week is focus just on me and not doing much of testing, since we see the bike was great today. So, I think if I can put myself back in this situation, it’s what I did in 2021. If I can find this flow again, I think I have the chance to fight with these guys for the win.
Just take me though the timeline. I know you got knocked out early in the season. Then you did try to come back at Daytona. Was it just a concussion, or did Daytona unlock other injuries? What has the process been like to get back on a bike?
So, at Daytona I don't think I had any concussion. My team asked me. I was like, “No, I don't think so.” I just hit the ground pretty hard, and it was pretty bad the next day. But no. The problem was more, I think I crashed in Daytona because I had a problem from my first crash in Houston, from my concussion at this time. I’m pretty sure my eyes were not completely back to normal. That’s what after Daytona we see some specialist and I wanted to make sure everything was fine, and it was not. So, that’s why we decided to don’t ride supercross. I went back to France, and I spent four weeks with a specialist of concussion rehab, and we worked on what was wrong. Obviously found some great stuff. I was lucky to work with a super scientific doctor and stuff. They just put me back on track and obviously it worked, because finished on the box today.
Did you start riding over there or did you come back over here? Did you get on motocross? Did you try supercross at all? What was it like when you got back riding again?
I think it was six weeks ago. As soon as I flew back from France, I just took one week to get through the time change and try the bike again on motocross, like a super easy track. When I felt like I didn’t have the problem I had before with my eyes, then we start training hard. But obviously it was too late to make the supercross. I think I could have maybe made the last round, but no really preparation so it’s not really smart to do that so we focused on motocross. It’s never enough. You always want more, more testing, more days to work. So, it’s been a wild time, but I’m back.
