It was another convincing weekend for defending 450MX champion Jett Lawrence, who delivered his second victory of Pro Motocross 2026 via a 1-1 scorecard at Thunder Valley. In this Conversation feature, Lawrence recounts his weekend in Colorado, as well as claiming the red plate three rounds into the season.

Image: Octopi Media.

Congratulations on now earning yourself the red plate. Can you talk a little bit about your day, and then also, I’m sure we’d all like to hear about the status of your foot and how that’s affecting you.

[I’m] super pumped to have [the] red plate. It’s obviously good to have. Doesn’t mean anything at this point, really. It’s more important if you have it at the last round, so not really much changes. To be fair, my ankle felt really, really good this weekend. I still can’t ride normal – I just have a little bit less pain. Every now and then, I still jar it a bit, but it was good, honestly. Even after walking around, it’s getting a lot better, which I’m happy about because it means I don’t have to struggle with walking as much as I did before, so I think it’s looking positive. I think each weekend we make some good strides in improving it, where it feels like it’s kind of going back to normal. Even during the week, when Dr. G adjusts my ankle, he would pull on it…only pop the left side of my foot, and my right side was still stuck. It was still pretty stiff going side to side, and this week we were able to get both sides to pop and a lot more range of movement. I was able to get a lot more range of movement side to side, so that was really, really good. Hopefully, each weekend it keeps making more improvements.

It looked like you were out there for a zone two ride, and I know yesterday you said you’re trying to keep your ankle at a seven out of 10, but in the first moto, you had some battles with your brother and [Haiden] Deegan. It looked like you might’ve gone more into that zone three or zone four threshold – do you just have more in the tank, or are you only riding around 80 percent?

That first one, I was going slow. I didn’t have a flow on the track at all, and you could have said zone two, honestly, but surprisingly, because I was so disjointed and didn’t have much of a flow, I almost got more tired in that one than I did the second one. The second one I was pushing, you could say, harder everywhere, but I didn’t get as tired as in the first one. That first one, I just couldn’t crack the flow. And obviously, with my foot, there are just some things – the reaction side of things – you want both feet to be on the pegs where sometimes my right foot’s just really light in areas, so when it flicks, it flicks my right foot off. So, it was not ideal, but we were just in defense mode in that first one. I think we did pretty well.

Image: Octopi Media.

Is there any hesitancy in putting your foot down, any worry about dabbing it with the ankle, and does that throw your rhythm off just a little bit?

Yeah, I mean, I’ve dabbed it a few times, and it gives this kind of sharp pain up my ankle into my calf, but I try not to dab it too much because it takes a few turns to kind of flare it back down, get it back to normal. So, I try not to, I’ve been pretty good with not dabbing it, and when I have dabbed it, I’ve been really light with it. Try not to stomp it as you normally would. So yeah, it definitely would affect me for a few turns, but it recovers fairly quickly, thankfully.

I heard you mention the track conditions, and that’s been a little bit of a subject around the pits. I’ve heard this weekend, when you go back and look at this race from the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, it’s traditionally a hard pack race. Ruts where they saturate it, but they get hard-packed deep. We’re kind of in that mulch era again, where it’s really spongy in places, and certain areas look decent. Walk me through what you thought of the track changes and the conditions today.

They obviously added mulch to the track, which I don’t think is a bad thing. It’s not like it’s a terrible thing. I think that it’s just added too close to the race. I think if they had added it in the months prior, when the mulch can work into the soil and mix, then I think it’ll hold better moisture. They add the mulch to hold the moisture, but right now it’s the mulch on top, and then there’s still a rock-hard base underneath, so it’s basically worse. I think if they added it sooner in the year, where it gives it one or two months to mix in with the dirt, I think it’d be a lot better. Because otherwise, you just get this where everything kind of pushes, nothing really holds. Eventually, it blows out and gets this – you get a hard edge, but then a slick base, and it gets loose. This creates a really untrustworthy feeling with your front and rear wheel. I mean, my first few laps when I went out there, I had both wheels sliding because of the mulch and the water on top of it as well. I think if they can do that, I think it’ll be a lot better.

Image: Octopi Media.

Secondly, Lucas and Sacha Coenen were here as well this weekend. A lot of people compare it a little bit to your story, it’s a little different. You guys went from Australia to Europe to do GPs and then to the US, but I mean same for them, starting the GPs, two brothers chasing a dream, wanting to come live the American dream. You’ve gone to race them a couple of times now. What do you think of their progress? What are your expectations if they’re able to come here in 2027?

It’s sick to see. I mean, I think I said it maybe yesterday – not many people get to experience the feeling that my brother and I get when we do well, when in 2023 Hunter won the 250 championship, and I won the 450 championship. We’re the only people that can really relate to that, and now, honestly, the Coenen brothers [can]. Lucas is doing really well in MXGP, and Sacha is as well in the 250 class, MX2. So, it’s cool when you see two brothers doing well. It’s sick. We had Jeremy Martin and Alex Martin before Hunter and I, and when you see those two do well, it’s always cool. It’s like a family thing. So, it was cool to see them come over. I got to race them last year at Ironman and have already seen them improve just from then. So, it’s cool to see, especially at a young age, being 19 years old, I remember when I was 19 riding a 450, you just keep learning and keep learning. You have that young energy, so it’s really, really cool to see. And they came over [at] a tough track. As I said, this dirt was really kind of weird and hard to adapt to.

Last week, you talked about being able to manage your flow, especially in moto two. This week was a contrast – you couldn’t manage the flow quite as much in the first race. Is that what we saw? And did you learn anything by being pressed as hard as you were by both Haiden and Hunter?

I learned that I didn’t have a good flow – I can tell you that for sure. It’s hard to learn much when you’re out front on someone else, but you kind of get a feeling a little bit on where they’re going to pass, and you can kind of read what’s his name like a book, where he is going to try and pass. So, it’s a little easier to kind of defend that. Hunter gets a lot more creative. He was able to get around me, and I was able to kind of fire back and get a good run-up to the start straight. I wouldn’t say I learned a crazy amount then, when I’m probably battling with them more behind.