Momentum continues to build for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Jorge Prado in SMX 2026, with victory at Playoff 2 moving the Spaniard into a 16-point lead in the 450SMX standings ahead of this weekend’s decider. In this Debrief feature, Prado reflects on his latest victory, adapting to the unique post-season format, and putting himself in position to challenge for the title at the SMX World Championship Final.

Image: Octopi Media.

Past experience

I mean, for some reason – well, first of all, I’ve been in this position before, so I feel like I’m capable of dealing with the pressure. For some reason, every time I get the red plate, it doesn’t matter if it’s here in the States, like now, or back in Europe, I just feel better. I feel more confident and my riding just gets better for some reason. So, it looks like the red plate suits me a lot.

Possible wrist injury

I mean, first lap after the finish line, I went on-off and then I went for the quad and I just framed it. I knew when I was in the air, I’m like, ‘Man, I think this is going to hurt,’ and I almost went over the bars, so I almost crashed. I’m happy I didn’t. Obviously, in a heat like this, it’s normal that you get some pain in your body, but not enough pain that didn’t allow me to keep pushing forward during the moto. Obviously, now you’re not riding anymore, no adrenaline, and the pain starts to come back, but these things happen when you’re fighting, and that’s the war. So, no, nothing. I don’t think it’s anything serious if I was able to finish the moto.

Leading in SMX

Well, I mean, I came to the States just trying to accomplish my goals. I don’t need to try and show anyone that I’m better than other guys. No, I just do it for myself. I came here to the States because my dream was to become world champion back in MXGP, and I did that. My next dream is to be Supercross champion and outdoor champion here, and hopefully next week SMX champion. So, I do it for myself, and I’m happy I have the best team by my side. As you could see, the improvement has been incredible all year long, starting from Supercross with fast qualifiers, which is not easy if you’ve never ridden Supercross in your life before, and then getting into heat race wins and even podiums. Then getting into outdoors and getting even a win and multiple podiums, so now we’re here in SMX and we get another win, and this time it’s indoor. So, it’s more like a Supercross track, and they took out my strongest point, which is the whoops. So, I would say today was a very good day.

Image: Octopi Media.

Tripling over

That jump after the double, the triple before coming to that left-handed right bowl corner, yes, it was quite difficult. Well, it wasn’t super-difficult, but the problem is if you just mistime it once, it can end up bad. So, that’s where you’ve got to be, ‘Okay, I risk it and I’m confident enough that I’m not going to make the mistake,’ and that’s it. But, yeah, it’s very technical. You’ve got to use your body and use the whole suspension to bring the bike over that second one.

Racing clean

Well, I think I’m a pretty clean rider. I would never go into a corner with the intention of taking someone out. With Kenny, you could see I really maintained a big margin of metres between myself and him. Even though later on I’m like, ‘Man, I could have been more aggressive,’ but I’m not like that. I’m not going to take Kenny out, and he never took me out, so what? There’s no reason. I like clean racing. If he beat me, it’s because he was faster. I should have started better and he passed me. So, I mean, why should I take him out and maybe he gets hurt or we get hurt together? There’s no reason to ride dirty, and I hate that type of racing. But if we need to ride dirty, I can also ride very dirty. And then with Hunter, it was a first-lap move. He left the whole corner on the inside free and I saw my chance. Kenny passed me there in the first moto, so I’m like, ‘Okay, it’s my time to learn from Kenny,’ and I do that to Hunter. So, he left the whole inside open. I’m like, ‘Okay, I just go in there and hopefully he doesn’t touch my rear because I don’t want to take Hunter out.’ I really don’t know how it looked from the outside, but from my position it didn’t look too dirty. So, I was happy with my pass.

Image: Octopi Media.

Quick recovery

Man, when I crashed, I was like, ‘Well, if I thought I was in a good spot, now I’m not in a good spot.’ And now I’ve really got to fight. I already thought I was fighting, but now I really need to dig and get to the guys in front of me. I mean, I’m not really good at when I crash to get back in the fight quick, but for some reason today I was quick. I was quick. I was again in the fight and I caught the guys up front, and I was doing great lap times. Physically, I was feeling perfect, so why not hammer down and let’s try to get the win? I knew Hunter was too far, but my goal on those laps was just to get to second, and I knew I didn’t have to make too difficult of calculations to know that I was going to be the overall winner. So, yeah, my goal was to get to second after the crash, and that’s exactly what I did. It was tough. It was tough. A couple of laps where my heart was going.

Title chances

I mean, it’s hard because getting on the podium is never easy. So, you can’t go to the next race with the mentality of just, ‘I mean, yeah, podium is okay.’ No, because if you go like that, you probably don’t even end up on the podium. These guys are all super fast. So, no. My goal for the next round is the same – try to win. And I know if I win, I get the title. That’s 100 percent sure, so I stick to those facts.

First riding in the US

Well, if I’m honest with you, that was, yeah, 2015 [or] 2016. I was only 14 years old and I was riding with the top guys at that moment from Red Bull KTM, and I was actually expecting myself to get to the States earlier. But then things happened and I stayed more time racing MXGP, and I just found myself in the States last year. To be honest, at that time I was expecting to come to the States racing here a bit earlier. But anyway, going back to your question, it’s not easy. I don’t remember any modern 450 rider – or 450 world champion from MXGP – getting to the States and having a red plate and winning indoors and outdoors. So, I think what I’m doing is not easy, especially because I’ve been riding outdoors for so many years, and getting used to these kinds of tracks, I thought it was going to be easier, but it really takes time. And for some reason I’m really good at it. So, yeah, I’m super-happy. I’m enjoying riding Supercross and now SMX and the outdoors here – I think that kid would be happy to see the future here on stage.