Image: Octopi Media.

A composed Ken Roczen says there’s ‘no hard feelings’ toward 450SX points-leader Hunter Lawrence after being denied a podium opportunity in Seattle, the Progressive Insurance Cycle Gear Suzuki rider forced to settle for 10th position on Saturday night.

Roczen was among the front-runners through much of the main event, at one stage circulating with the fastest lap times of the entire field as he closed in on Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Eli Tomac and then-leader Cooper Webb (Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing).

Missing the double before the whoop section proved a costly mistake late in the race for Roczen, as a charging Lawrence reeled the 31-year-old in before attempting an ill-timed pass in the sand section that resulted in both going down.

“Overall, we had a pretty dang good day,” Roczen recalled. “This is always a crazy venue to go to because the track gets so gnarly, but we had a really good heat race going, won that one, and had first gate pick [for the main]. I got off to a decent start and was putting on a strong charge in the middle of the race – we were all bunched up and riding really well.

“But the track did deteriorate really, really quickly. I had a couple of bad laps there towards the end, and I made a mistake [and I] couldn’t double before the whoop section. That just really cost me and allowed [Lawrence] to get way too close, and he pulled a move [that put us both on the ground].

“He came over and apologized,” he admitted. “I have no hard feelings towards it at all – I think it was a little bit of a [brief mental lapse]. It’s just unfortunate with situations like that. We pulled the shorter end of the stick until I got going again, and then the main was over. We ended up not with the greatest result, but we’re only 11 points down – I really can’t be too mad.”

Roczen was relegated from third to 10th in the incident upon not being able to refire his RM-Z, while Lawrence was able to recover to a P4 finish, and maintain a single-point advantage over Tomac entering the seventh round in Arlington this weekend.