Red Bull KTM’s Marvin Musquin made his return to the starting gate and the podium of Monster Energy Supercross at the opening round of the 2021 season in Houston.

Musquin was sidelined after knee surgery at the end of 2019 and spent all of 2020 enduring a massive rehabilitation effort to get back to racing. By the time he lined up at Houston it had been 623 days since he had taken to the track for a Supercross race.

“I was super-excited and I just wanted to get out there and get the first one done,” Musquin explained in the post-race press conference. “I qualified third which was awesome. Times were so close, with the top 15 within a second. I knew the start was going to be key. I ended up having a great start, was up front and got passed right away.” 

After getting shuffled back to fifth place behind Justin Brayton (Muc-Off Honda) and Adam Cianciarulo (Monster Energy Kawasaki), Musquin pushed his way back up into third place and settled in for the rest of the race.

“I was super-pumped on my riding and just wanted to be smooth and consistent for the rest of the main, I knew the guys up front were gone. To be smooth right there in third place and I rode my own race, it’s just amazing for a comeback and a first race. It’s unbelievable.”

While he’s clearly done a great job preparing for 2021 at the Baker’s Factory, he’s confident he will only get better with more racing: “To be honest missing a whole season and to come back, like Ken [Roczen] said, we’ve raced for so many years, but still missing a whole year is weird.

“When I got out there it didn’t feel too new. I’m still used to it, it’s just fitness wise and the intensity needs to come back. So racing multiple times in the week, it’ll be good. You know you do your motos at home but racing feels different to me, the intensity, the riders.

“Even though I practice with good guys, with Cooper [Webb] and Zach [Osborne], when you’re racing you have 20 other good guys. Like in the heat race I was not riding really well and everyone was right on my tail, pushing and revving – it’s different. So, you’ve got to be on point. I need to be healthy and not have little injuries, because we’re racing so many times in one week. So we’ve got to be consistent but it’s a great start.”