Honda Racing’s Dean Ferris secured his third overall victory in the 2022 Penrite ProMX Championship with a strong performance at Queensland Moto Park (QMP), as KTM Racing Team’s Nathan Crawford made a convincing return to the top step in MX2. MotoOnline caught up with both riders after the races for this Debrief feature. 

MX1

Image: Foremost Media.

Congratulations on your third overall victory of the season. How would you rate the win at QMP compared to the victories you’ve achieved this year? 

All of the victories are welcomed, QMP… it was nice, I felt like I rode really good so I’m really satisfied with that. Had a nice flow so overall, it was a good one, but I like them all equally.

Can you talk us through your approach to the two-part motos. Is it something you prefer, or is your preference the standard, single-start per moto format? 

I’m a bit old school, I kind of wish the motos were like 35 mins, but I don’t get hung up on the details. I know they [two-part motos] kind of work for me as well because I am pretty good off the start. The game plan was obviously to holeshot everything and make it easy from there, but I messed up the last start and I was on Gibbsy [Kirk Gibbs] the whole time, trying to make something happen but the ruts and the roost were quite difficult.

With three Honda Racing riders again lining up in MX1 next weekend against Aaron Tanti as the sole representative for CDR Yamaha Monster Energy, is there any way you will look to use that to your advantage in a final bid to reduce the 24-point deficit?  

Yeah, of course. I will do what I can do and focus on me. I think Kyle [Webster] and Wilson [Todd] will be strong at Coolum and if they can slip in there between us, then it will be good. That’s all we can really do.

Looking at the significance of the upcoming weekend with the championship on the line, does that change how much riding you will do in the build-up, throughout the week before the event? 

Nothing really changes for me, same amount of riding. I kind of just go off how I feel. It’s been a really special year actually, with preparation, I’ve spent a lot of time doing a lot of testing, probably more so than any other year. My approach has been different, but I’m really happy with the bike now and I feel like the last few weeks have been back to my old program where I go to the track and just ride, do my motos and sprints, things like that. I’m really enjoying it, the last weeks have been great in terms of riding, practising and preparation.

MX2

Image: Foremost Media.

Congratulations on returning to the top step. Can you explain just how emotional and important it is to be able to come back and get a round win after everything you have been through this year? 

It was really good! To be honest, I think Coffs Harbour was more of an emotionally excited, or happy one for me just because it was the first one [race back from injury]. I did set a goal that I would like to win a round, given I would only be in three of them, so it still felt really good, don’t get me wrong, but it was just good to be able to reward the team with that result. We worked pretty hard behind the scenes to get those results like that and it did feel really good.

Before Coffs Harbour, you had mentioned that overall you were between 70 and 80 percent. Fast-forward to QMP and it looked like you had plenty in the tank to be able to finish the races strong. Would you say you are back to 100 percent now, or is it still a rebuilding process? 

I’m getting back to a pretty good level. I think that when I said I was behind the eight ball when I came into Coffs, it just came down to missing the opening five rounds of the season. You sort of build up a pretty big base of race fitness and conditioning, stuff like that the more you race. Because I have only done two now, physically off the bike and when I’m practising I feel good, but race conditioning is a little bit different. I’m in a pretty good position to get the results that I am getting, it’s just missing those first five rounds, as I said, you build up a bit of a base. But otherwise, I feel pretty good.

In moto two you had a good start and could control the race from the front. In the first moto, however, can you explain exactly how hard the track was to complete a pass, and what the key was for you to be able to make it to the lead?  

It was really, really hard to pass. I was in third and could see the two boys out in front going at it, obviously, the track was still quite wet and I knew to make a pass you either had to throw it up the inside of someone… it had to be quite an aggressive pass. I just knew with the lead two going at it [Kaleb Barham and Rhys Budd] that someone was going to make a mistake. Sure enough, Rhys was the first one to make the mistake, then once I got into second I just had to push quite hard because KJ was riding a good pace. Sitting back I got to play around with some lines and I had a couple of better lines than the front two and just made it work.

There was a 2023 KTM 250 SX-F on display at QMP with your race number on it. Is the intention to complete ProMX on the 2022 bike and look at rolling out the 2023 model for supercross? 

Yeah, it’s definitely an option that we are looking at. I’ll be finishing out ProMX on the 2022 model and basically, straight after Coolum, I get to spend a week on the 2023 bike to bed it in and get used to it. We are going to do a little bit of testing on it, but the end result is not really confirmed yet with what bike we are racing in supercross. The option is definitely there.