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Season 2023 will mark a homecoming for Honda Racing signing Jed Beaton, the experienced international set to race in Australia for the first time since clinching the MX2 crown in 2016 and he’s labelling the return as an ‘easy transition’ so far.

After spending six years in Europe, his latest stint as part of the F&H Kawasaki team in MXGP, it was confirmed in November that Beaton would return home to race a factory-backed CRF450R with Honda at a national level.

“It’s been an easy transition actually,” the 25-year-old told MotoOnline. “I was riding a Japanese bike in Europe when I was there. Obviously, the Honda and Kawasaki are fairly different in ways, but the feeling of the frame and stuff are kind of the same really, so yeah, everything on that side has been easy so far.”

While the move back home has been smooth by all accounts, Beaton notably suffered a nerve injury in his shoulder during his rookie MXGP campaign, stating that he’s mostly recovered ahead of the Penrite ProMX opener at Wonthaggi on 5 March.

“It was a weird type of injury, but I’d say I’m back to about 90 percent with it,” Beaton added. “It was a nerve injury between my neck and my shoulder – it was giving me shit all last year. Like I said, it was weird, I had no pain from it, not like a fracture where you feel pain for a while then it’s kind of gone.

“With the nerve injury, it’s just been hanging around for a while and it’s only now starting to feel a bit better. There’s been a lot of progress with it, it’s just slow progress, but I’ve been focusing on it a lot since I’ve been home the last couple of months… it’s just dragged on for a long time.”

The Honda newcomer had his first outing with the team this past weekend at the AMX MX Open in Wonthaggi, notably suffering with arm-pump throughout the event, finishing second overall behind teammate Kyle Webster after logging moto scores of 2-1-2-2.