News 22 Jun 2021

Lapped rider encounter a big scare reflects Ferrandis

The 450 rookie feels he's a part of the front group as he leads championship.

Image: Octopi Media.

450MX red-plate holder Dylan Ferrandis had an incident with a lapped rider in the second moto at High Point that nearly cost him the overall, a moment he said ‘was really scary’ following the race.

While his 2-2 moto finishes for first overall look clean on paper, Ferrandis’ day at High Point for round three of the 2021 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross wasn’t without incident.

As the Monster Energy Star Racing Yamaha rider worked his way through lap traffic in the second moto, he connected with a lapped rider in front of him, sending him into a full ‘superman’ nearly putting him on the ground.

“That was really scary,” Ferrandis explained. “I was expecting him to let me by and he didn’t, and at the last moment I tried to get out of the rut but I couldn’t so I hit him. Then my visor hit my handlebar so I kind of lost vision for a half-second and that’s where I [did] a superman or whatever.

“I kind of just sat on the back and was like ‘okay I’m not crashed’ and just cracked the throttle and got back to racing. So yeah, that was really scary, and yeah I don’t know, we’re used to it, it’s happening every time I get close to lappers but it’s part of the racing.”

While Ferrandis’ success so far in his rookie 450 outdoor season has seemingly come natural, he mentioned following the second round that it was a bit surreal to be racing with the top riders in the class.

Now that he’s settled in and clearly battling for the championship, he reflected on the battle that he had with Ken Roczen (Team Honda HRC) as he begins to feel that he’s a part of the front group.

“I guess I’m part of the group now,” he continued. “For sure, like I explained before, it takes time to realize that you’re riding with such a high competition and yeah, it was a little hard to figure it out in supercross, but yeah I feel like I’m in the group.”

The battle with Kenny was really intense. He was on me both motos and I’ve kind of known Kenny for a long time, in Europe I was watching him in MX2 when I was riding the European championship. So yeah I kind of known him for a long time and know what he’s capable of, so yeah, there’s no room for mistakes.”

Ferrandis now leads the championship by three points over Roczen as the series takes a weekend off ahead of the iconic RedBud round that’s set to take place over the fourth of July weekend.

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