Team HRC's Mitch Evans put on an impressive performance at the Internazionali d’Italia, scoring a race win at the final round in Mantova and earning second overall in the three-round championship.
Evans finished second in the championship to his teammate, defending FIM Motocross World Champion Tim Gajser, in the young Queenslander’s first year on the CRF450RW.
The pair dominated the series from start to finish, winning all six races with Gajser collecting five victories and Evans picking up the last. Evans’ race win at the final round in Mantova was hard-fought, beating Gajser and nine-time FIM Motocross World Champion Antonio Cairoli in a straight-up battle.
“I had a great time riding this Internazionali d’Italia, especially finishing off with a win in the Superfinal here,” said Evans. “I followed Tim for a little bit but I had good lines so I made the pass and just tried to ride forward and concentrate on what I was doing. It is awesome to get a race win and now I know what it’s like, I hope I can repeat it during the season. However, I also know that it won’t be easy so I need to keep training hard and working with the team to make sure my level stays consistently high.”
Team manager, Marcus Pereira de Freitas, was pumped with his team’s result in the series. “Practically the perfect series for Team HRC across these three rounds in Italy. Tim winning five of the six motos and then Mitch winning this last race, means that both riders are on a really good level right now and that the new Honda CRF450RW is performing really well too. We also had five holeshots out of six and that will be an important part as we look to defend the MXGP championship, so overall everyone in the team is extremely happy with how things have gone. We now have just less than three weeks to keep working and fine-tuning everything for Matterley Basin where the MXGPs begin.”
Both riders now have a little break from race action, before heading to Matterley Basin, Great Britain which is hosting round one of the MXGP series on February 29-March 1st.
114 Motorsports Honda rider Nathan Crawford finished 23rd overall in MX2 after placing 14th at Mantova and 16th at Ottobiano. Teammate Bailey Malkiewicz, unfortunately, came together with another rider on lap two the MX2 Moto at the previous round, Ottobiano.
Caleb Grothues finished 26th at the first round of the series at Riola Sardo and 39th at Mantova.
