Round two offers optimism and redemption for Team HRC

Mantova, Italy is host for the second round of the 2022 motocross world championship, which is a track that both Tim Gajser and Mitch Evans are very familiar with.

Over the past few years, the sandy circuit in northern Italy has hosted a lot of races, as double-headers, triple-headers and even preseason races have taken place there, with Team HRC having both good and bad memories from these events.

Most recently were the deciding rounds of the 2021 season when the #243 closely missed out on what would have been his fifth world title. Instead, he had to console himself with finishing third in the championship, with that result now providing motivation to come out swinging for these opening rounds in 2022 – which is exactly what he did at Matterley Basin last weekend.

At the MXGP of Great Britain, Gajser won the first moto, coming through the field and overtaking all of his title rivals in a great display of speed and race craft. The second moto followed a similar pattern, but an unfortunate mistake a few laps from the end, saw him slip to second, but it was still enough to win the overall and give him the red-plate for this round in Mantova, and he’ll be hoping to repeat that feat when the gate drops this Sunday.

For teammate Evans, the goals are a bit different as the Australian is still coming back from his injury nightmare, but he has won at Mantova in 2020 at the Internazionali d’Italia, so he will at least be racing a circuit he is comfortable on. With each track session, confidence grows and slowly but surely, he will get back to the form that saw him challenging for podiums and top five results.

In the 2022, the schedule has returned to the two-day format so they have a free practice, a timed practice and then qualifying race on Saturday, before a warm-up session and then the two motos on Sunday 6^th March.