This is the usual conundrum. Jett Lawrence dominates races in a different way, usually hovering his lead around the two-second mark and just holding it. He will only take as much risk or spend as much energy as needed, with the reserve to push a little harder if an attack comes.
So when someone gets close, it’s hard to know if this is a true challenge or not. At Fox Raceway on Saturday, it looked like a real attack, first with his brother Hunter nearly pulling up side-by-side, and then Chase Sexton pushing hard in the second half of the race to apply pressure. Roger De Coster, the Motorsports Director for Sexton’s Red Bull KTM outfit, told me that he thought Sexton rode better than anyone on Saturday, even if he didn’t get the win. Numbers show that Sexton had the fastest lap of that moto and his final lap was nearly as fast as Jett’s best lap at any point.
So how strong was this challenge? Well, Jett’s 1-1 says the answer is simply “not strong enough” but even Sexton himself didn’t boast. He said he needs to find more pace, because each time he got close, Jett was able to keep him at bay.
“My start wasn’t good in the first moto but I made it work and I was probably fifth or sixth,” Sexton said. “Then I went to the outside going up the hill and I think Dylan [Ferrandis] made a mistake and came to a stop and I and tagged his back wheel and went down. So it wasn’t a great start and I came back pretty good, and then I fell again! [Laughs] I felt pretty good at the end of the moto and then, second moto, Hunter came out of the gate like a cannon [Laughs] and I was right next to him, so I kind of followed him around the first turn. Then Phil [Nicoletti] actually came out of nowhere, and passed me and him [Hunter]. So it was pretty chaotic. We actually had a good pace going. I passed Hunter in the switchback right here, and I think the pace went up a little bit. Yeah I went off the track. I tried my best. When I came up to him [Jett] he would answer. I’ve just got to get better at finding more pace.”
Hunter Lawrence’s challenge to Jett, earlier, was brief, but he looked great in his 450 Pro Motocross debut. Hunter is always the analytical guy, though, so he didn’t see this as much reason to celebrate.
“Yeah sure, it wasn’t bad,” he said on his second overall and 2-3 scores. “It was a good day, had a cool gear set collab, so you want to always do good on days like that so you have more power to convince Alpinestars to make more one-off gear sets! It was a good day, honesty, I’m not too fond of this place but it’s always been good to us.”
That’s true, as the Lawrences have crushed it at Fox Raceway recently. Jett is undefeated there in his career (in terms of overall wins), dating all the way back to 2020. But he says the love is a one-way street, maybe Fox Raceway loves him, but he’s not so sure why he does well there, because it’s not his favorite track. On this day, his bike setup didn’t feel like he had hoped.
“I think when the bike is not quite working as well as you want it to be, you kind of have to put in more effort to hold it down and adjust for that,” he said. “Use that bit more strength to hold it. The first moto was the worst, I was at a bit of a limit, I couldn’t push too hard. I could kind of push hard at the start, when the bumps were smaller, but as it went on I had to try to use more flow. Glad I was able to be precise enough. We softened it for the second moto but then we ended up being over the front a little more. It’s good to get 24-0 to kind of match Ricky and James [their perfect seasons offered two more motos than Jett’s 22-0 last year], but we’ll go back to the drawing board look at some stuff and improve that, and also improve myself. I think in supercross, we’re a little heavier with our legs and we don’t move them as much because we have such stiff suspension. You’re trying to get the suspension to work more, where in outdoors you use your legs a lot more. So throughout the season I think we’ll get better and better and get my moto legs more and more.”
Fox Raceway - 450
May 25, 2024| Rider | Hometown | Motos | Bike | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Jett Lawrence | Landsborough, Australia  | 1 - 1 | Honda CRF450R |
| 2 |  Hunter Lawrence | Landsborough, Australia | 2 - 3 | Honda CRF450R |
| 3 |  Chase Sexton | La Moille, IL  | 4 - 2 | KTM 450 SX-F |
| 4 |  Dylan Ferrandis | Avignon, France  | 7 - 5 | Honda CRF450R |
| 5 |  Justin Barcia | Monroe, NY | 6 - 6 | GasGas MC 450F |
How could Jett have won this race so many times and also have won every other 450 race last year and yet still not have a perfect motorcycle? Honda’s Team Manager Lars Lindstrom told our Steve Matthes that some of the components on the bike have changed for 2024, so they can’t just roll out the identical feel to 2023. But beyond that, motocross is just never the same. Track prep and weather variance can make the same bike from a year earlier feel different the next time. Then there’s the rider’s own situation, physically, and how he feels from one year to the next.
"We missed the mark a little bit in the second moto but that happens,” said Hunter. “It’s up to the rider to make up the difference, and we’re able to compensate on that. We’re able to point the finger at ourselves and hold ourselves accountable and give the best we can do, regardless of the track or the bike.”
Last year Sexton pressed Jett Lawrence for nearly the entire second moto. So in a sense, this is the same. What does Sexton think?
“It feels pretty similar but I do feel like I have more fight this year,” Sexton said. “My motivation is pretty high, last year I just wasn’t gelling, I was pretty off in outdoors. My speed felt pretty good, I just need to get out of the chaos in the opening laps. I feel like today I rode pretty well in the second moto. I was pretty patient for the first 15 minutes then I put in a charge. I’ll go back to work this week and try to put a stop to this.”
![Hunter Lawrence]()
Hunter Lawrence Align Media ![Hunter Lawrence]()
Hunter Lawrence Align Media ![Lawrence brothers]()
Lawrence brothers Align Media ![Lawrence brothers]()
Lawrence brothers Align Media
NBC Sports analyst (and perfect season alumnus) James Stewart commented on the broadcast that Jett Lawrence’s bike looked to have faster rear suspension rebound compared to Sexton’s bike. Sexton’s slower suspension movement is nice on downhills because the bike won’t try to kick forward, but he believes Lawrence was able to accelerate out of the corners much more quickly with his setup.
“They [KTM] have a lot more data and time on the bike [in motocross],” said Sexton, referencing KTM’s big field in MXGP. “In supercross I went the complete opposite on the bike compared to what everyone else is doing and have done for the past couple of years. It took me awhile to get the bike where I wanted it. Outdoors we were definitely closer. We have, I feel a pretty stable bike. On the downhills we were good, not the best in the corners, but we were able to go downhill fast so that was good. But yeah we have some work to do, and it will be an evolution the whole season.”
Nearly everyone is chasing the right feel at motocross round one, even when they nail it, it won’t feel right because of the months of supercross riding in the recent rear view. This trio—Jett, Hunter, and Chase—are in a race on the track and a race to see who can improve the most and the fastest. Is Jett vulnerable right now? It looked like it at round one. We’ve been fooled before.
