The second round of the FIM World Supercross Championship (WSX) took place over the weekend in Abu Dhabi. A wild night of racing led to Max Anstie taking over the points lead from Shane McElrath in the MX2 class. Anstie now has a 32-point lead heading into the third and final round in Australia. Chris Blose bounced back from a rough round one for second, and Maxime Desprey took third. Here is what the podium finishers had to say after the race.
Max Anstie
You come away with the overall win and the points lead, turned out to be a pretty decent weekend for you. Just tell us how you're feeling right now.
Anstie: Yeah, it's great to have the red plate and I don't know, coming into this, having the British national anthem playing and Jamie Dobb rubbed it in quite a few times that he was the last British World Champion. And I don't really care whether it's MXGP or this, I want one of those gold FIM medals. In MXGP and MX2, I got a third place one. And man, I never thought I'd be back on a 250, now I'm here with this opportunity. Yeah, the track was small and tight and I don't think most of us have raced a track like this, but I had to just execute and I'm lucky that I've got a good group of guys that I'm racing against. But, yeah, everyone was solid and we were just pushing and holding our lines and doing what we doing, what we had to do. So, yeah, had a great day.
The double stack start gate was quite interesting and obviously everybody knew they didn't want to be on the second row, but championship leader coming in by only three points, Shane McElrath was one of those riders not only on the second row, but also on the right-hand side of the gates. Did that change how you came into the racing? Knowing that you were front row inside and knowing that there's a good opportunity here to not just finish on the podium, maybe to win and come away as a championship leader?
Of course that crosses your mind, but then if you sit there and think about it too long, it's like, “Oh, no, now it's my race to lose if I mess this up. I don't want to push the front or do anything, anything like that.” So, I'm old enough and I've been around long enough. I knew that I just had to execute each start each time I'm out on the track and hit my marks, hit my whoops, do my things and not do anything too silly. Take a third if I have to in the first race, or whatever race you know, just try and be around that top three, four. And get through the first couple of corners clean because they were carnage if you weren't out front real quick.
Final round, Australia, again going there as a championship leader. Looking forward to it now, even more so than here?
One hundred percent. We fly to Australia tomorrow. We've got the next round of the Australian championship this next weekend coming up in Newcastle and then just hanging out there. The teams primarily based in Australia, the boss is Australian. So, it's a big race for them. We've got the Australian championship on Friday and then World Supercross Saturday. So, having a bigger points lead it's going to be a little nicer because two nights of Supercross racing is quite intense, especially with the late night. So, looking forward to Melbourne and hopefully getting this thing done.
Chris Blose
Second overall and of course, first podium this year, Honda Nils rider Chris Blose. Congratulations on the podium. Good to see you up there. It's been a solid day of riding for you throughout the day, you must be not only immensely proud but pleased with the way you performed here.
Blose: Yeah, happy to be up here, obviously, getting second overall is definitely a lot better than the first round. Although the first round was going somewhat well until main event three happened. But, yeah, happy to be back up here, obviously being a tighter track and little arenacrossy. Obviously, I have my background in that. So, I was pretty excited to come here and I knew obviously practice was going to be important, which obviously I didn't do as well as I should have. But the heat race went well, and I knew getting a solid gate pick for all three main events was going to be key.
Obviously, a contrast to what happened at Villa Park the first round, I think he had a 12th, a 4th and a 20th there for 12th overall. What changed between then and now? Was it just more time on the bike or was it just as you said, this arenacross-style circuit just suited you better than the first round?
No, I don't think it's that. You know, after the first round we went back and did some suspension testing and got the bike a little bit more dialed into what I think it should be. And obviously, I feel a lot more comfortable on it. Everyone's been working really hard, and it obviously paid off and we got Australia next weekend, which I'm super excited to go back there. I won the SX2 championship there in 2019. So that place has always been good to me and obviously it's a cool city and going to Australia is always fun. So, really looking forward to it, hopefully we can get up there and battle with these guys again and get off to some good starts, looking forward to it.
Maxime Desprey
And finally, third overall, Maxim Desprey Team GSM Yamaha, the Frenchman, started the weekend sixth overall and had an opportunity to move into third and I believe he's moved up to third in the championship, but third overall here this weekend in Abu Dhabi. First podium, congratulations. How do you feel?
Desprey: Yeah, the weekend went good for me. I'm feeling good with my bike, and I knew something good [could happen]. I can expect a good result here with the track and I did two good starts, and I was good just crash in the second moto. So, I have nothing to lose for the last one. And I did [a] good start, it's good for me, for the team to get a podium here. We worked hard in France and it's good to have a podium because in France I won all the races. But here you have the American guy or the, the whole guy who rides super, super good in supercross. So, it's nice to be here. And yeah, it's good.
Did you enjoy the racing? Did you find the racing was fun this evening?
Yeah, yeah, it was when you finish on the podium. So, yeah, I did some good moves and yeah it was a really good, really good day for me.
Were you surprised when you crossed the finish line after the last race when the team said you are third overall? Then you were on the podium. Was that a surprise?
Yeah, I was waiting and when they say, “You, you did podium.” Yeah, it was good. It's a good memory.
Final round Australia. You'll be there. Have you been to Australia before? To race?
Yeah, last year, we were there but we have the Dutch Supercross championship before and Paris also, so I hope to do good there to have a good visit in Paris. Should be good.
