Source: Supplied.

Team Suzuki World MXGP’s Ben Townley suffered a string of bad luck during the 12th round of the 2016 FIM Motocross World Championship in Mantova, Italy.

The New Zealander went down in the first corner during the opening MXGP moto before going down again after making contact with a competitor just two laps later, forcing him out of the moto with a sore knee.

Moto two saw Townley go down after clipping a downed Evgeny Bobryshev, who had made a mistake ahead of him. Again, the returning MXGP contender retired from the moto, to chalk up his second DNF for the event.

“I’m almost without words for Ben because his luck has been unbelievable,” said team manager Stefan Everts. “He was saying after warm up this morning how good he was feeling and then to have both motos go the way they did was so disappointing for him and for us because the whole team pushes very hard and does a good job. He is pretty down about today but we have some time to reflect on this and the next Grand Prix will be another challenge.”

Townley’s dual DNF in Italy has dropped him from 15th to 16th position in the overall standings as the series now takes a three-week break before returning at the Grand Prix of Czech Republic on 24 July.