Image: Foremost Media.

KTM Racing Team rider Nathan Crawford will remain in the SX2 class for the upcoming 2023 Fox Australian Supercross Championship (AUSX), opting out of initial plans to step up to a 450.

Crawford was previously due to race in the MX2 category of the Penrite ProMX Championship, before making the jump to the SX1 class for the AUSX championship.

However, the 26-year-old Crawford will continue on the 250 into supercross, despite spending time training on the 450 SX-F in the late stages of the outdoor season. With Kirk Gibbs on a motocross-only contract, it’s unclear if KTM will have an official premier class entry alongside SX2 duo Crawford and Kayden Minear.

“For 2023, the initial idea was to step up to the 450 for the supercross season,” Crawford told MotoOnline. “But it came up with maybe two rounds left in the motocross, my team manager Kyle Blunden put out the idea of staying on a 250 for supercross.

“To be honest, I can’t remember the exact reason of how it came up, but it was just a mutual decision and we agreed it was the best move going forward, simply because of the timeframe that we have.

“It would take a fair bit of time testing to get comfortable on the 450 for supercross and obviously we have a great base on the 250 from what we had last year, so it just seemed like a good fit to just pick up where we left off in 2022.”

AUSX 2022 was a solid season for the 199 machine as he featured on the podium at two of the four events, finishing the season-opener at Marvel Stadium in P3 and he was second in the final round at Wagga Wagga – eventually ending the championship in third place.

Crawford also has 450 class experience racing supercross from earlier in his career, having raced the SX1 category in 2017 with Kawasaki, but has largely been a 250 rider in Australia and internationally since.

It had been expected that the Queenslander would return to the premier class full-time in the second of two years on his current KTM Racing Team contract for 2024, but recent speculation has indicated he is instead considering another MX2 campaign after finishing runner-up in ProMX this season.