Image: Supplied.

A revitalised Justin Barcia is expected to finish out the season with Monster Energy Knich Yamaha after claiming three Monster Energy AMA Supercross podiums in four races aboard the factory YZ450F.

Barcia, still only 25 years of age, has been a revelation this season in a six-race deal to deputise for Davi Millsaps, however his newfound form is almost certain to lead to a contract extension to complete the year.

Four rounds into the new season and Barcia has delivered a convincing haul of results for Yamaha to sit second in the point standings, nine out from current leader Jason Anderson (Rockstar Energy Husqvarna) as teammate Cooper Webb is in P11 following his season-best eighth in Arizona.

“No news is good news, right?” Barcia commented post-race at Glendale, where he finished second in the 450SX main event. “No, I definitely plan on being with the Monster Energy Knich Yamaha team the rest of the season, for sure – definitely working on it.

“It’s been good for me, I think the whole six-race thing was just a great opportunity to show I still have that fire from a couple years ago… It’s been a while. All in all, I think it’s worked in Yamaha’s favour and mine. It’s great, so I hope to continue the relationship.”

After splitting with JGRMX at the end of last season and lining up in the Monster Energy Cup on a privateer Honda, the factory lifeline from Yamaha has led to a significant run in the early stages of 2018. He event contemplated retirement at one point before opting to race-on.

“You can go for a while in this career, but for me I needed to figure out if this is what I actually wanted or if I wanted to just retire, because I probably could have had an alright life retiring last year,” he added. “But for me, I just kind of had to take a little break and clear my head and think about things. I was going to go try to obviously race on my own because I still wanted to race, but luckily this opportunity at Yamaha came up.

“It just shows when you get your mental game back in check and you get a strong team behind you and a good, new motorcycle, I was given all the puzzle pieces and kind of just gluing them all together. I changed my training, I changed everything, but luckily mentally, I think going through those tough years made me a lot tougher of a person and able to get through stuff now. What I thought was hard back then is really not that bad.”