James Stewart is yet to finish in the top five since joining JGRMX for 2012. Image: Simon Cudby.

Toyota/Yamaha/JGRMX’s James Stewart has vowed not to give up despite missing the top five in the opening two rounds of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross, an FIM World Championship.

Despite being drained and under the weather all week leading into Phoenix, Stewart battled his way to another heat race win, but was only able to scrape together an eighth-place finish in the main event at Phoenix after crashing.

Speaking via a video on his official website at JS7.com, Stewart admitted that he was frustrated since he thought he could win in Phoenix, but remains focused on the championship fight.

“Eighth place in the main event is obviously not what I wanted,” Stewart explained. “We rode way better than we did last week, but I’m a little bit under the weather right now.

“I felt like I rode really good in the practices and also the heat race, but got two bad starts in the heat race and the main event. It put me back there with some guys, where everybody was crashing over that wall, and I ended up running into the back of [somebody] then got stuck in the sand.

“I felt like we definitely had the win tonight. It was a really good race for us, even coming up through the back of the pack. I’ll never give up and it’s a long season.

“This is not where we want to be at, but next week at Dodger Stadium hopefully we get up there.”

Stewart now sits seventh in the standings after two of 17 rounds contested so far this season.