Jett Lawrence has restabilized his position in Monster Energy AMA Supercross, as after three-straight races off the podium the round-one winner scored his second win of 2024 at round five. His Detroit win was a wire-to-wire affair, just like his Anaheim 1 victory. It wasn’t as easy as it looked, though, because this track was hammered. Jett answered several questions on the track, and then off of it in the post-race press conference.
Jett, some redemption for you. I know the past few rounds have been kind of rough, a little bit. So, how does it feel to get on the top step once again like you did in a one?
Jett Lawrence: It definitely feels nice. Been a rough couple of weeks, on the riding side of things and obviously off the bike, but no, it helps make these wins even sweeter. And it's a good bit of motivation, you know.
You and Kenny both mentioned the track was breaking down, getting tough. And you said there were two times that were kind of scary for you. Can you bring us through those?
Oh, yeah, I thought, I thought it was my time those two times! But luckily, it wasn't yet. It was scary. I think my main big one that I had on that table top, I found out my shifter was hitting the rut when I went to seat bounce. So, I'd kind of go into like neutral because I was in first gear. So, that was a scary one and I was able to fix that. Then the other one was just, took a different line, I wasn't fully switched on and kind of endowed the whiskey throttle thankfully able to kind of keep it on two wheels and bring it home after that. It was just kind of doubling almost through things. So, it was nice to bring it back home.
![Jett Lawrence]()
Jett Lawrence Align Media ![]()
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Align Media ![Lawrence and the Honda HRC crew.]()
Lawrence and the Honda HRC crew. Align Media
It’s been a couple crazy weeks. It's kind of a two part question. First, we've seen you hit the ground a lot in the last few weeks. Are you feeling sore from that? And then secondly, the negative reactions from the crowd just kind of generally over the last few weeks. How do you deal with that mentally?
[Laughs] Well, thankfully, I'm still pretty young so the recovery time is fairly quick. But, yeah, I mean, [the crowd reaction] that's just noise. I mean, a lot of people have had it before and I mean, it's not like it's the first time it's ever happened in the sport. So, I mean, it is what it is just. Just helps like a little motivational stuff, kind of wanting to go out and do good. And obviously the past few weeks haven't been quite the best with the results, making silly, silly decisions and wanting to win so bad. So, this kind of caused me a few mistakes. This kind of reset things tonight, just kind of go back to my old ways of trying to get a good start and just hit my marks.
On the broadcast you mentioned [the real] Jett Lawrence showed up tonight. What's the what's the biggest difference from this to the past two weeks for you?
I think the biggest difference for me is my decision kind of making. The past few weeks have just been kind of not as good. Not so much riding side of things because my speed's been not too bad, but it's just more poor executing and that stuff. So, yeah, I think what I mean by that, more just kind of mentally, decision wise.
What changes have you made to the motorcycle in the last five weeks?
If you went from A1 ‘till now, it's been a quite a big change. We came into A1 with it being pretty stiff. We went a lot softer, but obviously we haven't really got to test it out much because the last few rounds have been pretty muddy and then A2 we got to test it a bit and it felt really, really good. But it was nice to kind of come to a track that had traction and would pull the bike in. So, it's good learning for me to learn this 450. It's a tough bike to learn with all that motor. So, it's a cool learning curve for me. This team's been great, been working really hard. So, it's been nice to get this win, especially in these rough conditions. Shout out to Derek [Atkinson, Show suspension tech] for the doing our suspension and kind of getting us set up good.
You're now two for two in regular format dry track races. Both of the wins have been fairly dominant. Do you feel the momentum shift or are you still thinking that there's a lot of parity going on?
Yeah, for sure. The field is very stacked this year. Everyone's fairly close in speed. So, I think the biggest thing is for me is just kind of getting that consistency and consistent starts really and just always being up there. It's a long supercross season. So, yeah, hopefully it switch sides a little bit and I start getting in a bit of a groove and rhythm. We'll obviously see. We're going to such different kind of track conditions, here being really soft rutted, slower paced and technical and then we're gonna go to Arizona now where it's gonna be pretty, pretty hard and dry and it's gonna be going Mach 10. So, it's gonna be exciting learning curve. But I think the biggest thing is just trying to stay consistent.
Detroit - 450SX Main Event
February 3, 2024| Rider | Time | Interval | Best Lap | Hometown | Bike | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Jett Lawrence | 28 Laps | 43.691 | Landsborough, Australia  | Honda CRF450R | |
| 2 |  Chase Sexton | +4.740 | 43.943 | La Moille, IL  | KTM 450 SX-F | |
| 3 |  Ken Roczen | +14.709 | 43.437 | Mattstedt, Germany  | Suzuki RM-Z450 | |
| 4 |  Cooper Webb | +21.420 | 44.628 | Newport, NC | Yamaha YZ450F | |
| 5 |  Jason Anderson | +27.501 | 45.191 | Edgewood, NM | Kawasaki KX450SR |
Sometimes our performances and race results are to prove something to ourselves and other times it's to prove something to other people. So, what was that the case tonight?
No, it's obviously always good to get a win for yourself. The other side of things, it would be nice…. you would like to know woudn’t ya? [Said with sarcasm] But, no, for me, it’s for the team.
You had a battle with Jason Anderson in the heat race. Were you a bit nervous in some of them corners and how it was that for you? And also your starts were really good tonight. Did you make any changes with the bike?
The heat race was fun with Jason. I tried making sure I showed my respect in the racing and, with him, with his previous racing, I was thinking just mentally, just get into the rut, but for some reason my body was being very cautious to the inside! But no, he rode good that heat race. It was a fun battle. It was really fun going back and forth with him when it's racing like that. I would rather do that all moto with Jason because it’s a fun way to race. And the starts? Yeah, we've done a few starts during the week and kind of changed a few things.
![Lawrence and Anderson]()
Lawrence and Anderson Align Media ![Lawrence and Anderson]()
Lawrence and Anderson Align Media
Are you at all surprised or does anything stand out about the way racers in the 450 class race? Differently than maybe the 250 class.
I think in the 450 class, I definitely feel a lot more comfortable going down the rhythm next to someone, like with Jason I could go down, even through the whoops, it was nice to go down [the whoops] next to him and kind of be pretty relaxed with him just there because I know he's very good in the whoops. In the 250 class you don’t know what you’re going to get. I like racing the 450 guys. They race good, they race hard. It's good learning for me.
The rhythm after the finish line, we saw in practice qualifying, you were downsiding the table, quadding in. Did that seem feasible at all? Was that faster? And then secondly, did you ever consider quadding into the rhythm before the whoops?
Yeah, the first part, I just kind of tried it for another line really, because I kind of obviously knew this track was gonna get beat down pretty hard. So, if it's another rhythm and you’re staying out of those deep ruts, it gives me a bit more of a safer kind of route, you could say, through that rhythm. So, I definitely thought of it, but obviously the ruts got pretty gnarly in that up ramp so, it was harder to do it. And then yeah, before the whoops, I never really thought of it. I obviously would have liked to, but it was just not the right place and not the right dirt to do it. I knew I probably would have got it once when it was fresh maybe, but then in the main, I wouldn't be really doing it at all.
