Yesterday (14 April 2022), Yamaha and Dylan Ferrandis announced that the Frenchman will not return for the remainder of the 2022 AMA Supercross season.
Ferrandis has been out of action since the Detroit Supercross earlier this season, which turned out to be a brutal night for a significant amount of the elite 450SX riders.
Ferrandis’ retirement from that race was reportedly not even from a crash, rather from a hard landing which injured his wrist. Before Detroit, there had already been an incident at the Daytona Supercross the week before where Ferrandis’ hand came off the bar when hitting the wall jump there in practice.
In 2021, Ferrandis won the 450MX title in the summer on his first attempt. With his Supercross title campaign never really gathering momentum even before his Detroit injury, it makes sense with only four rounds to go for the Frenchman to focus fully on defending that outdoors #1 plate.
Additionally, from the perspective of the Star Racing team, who run Yamaha’s factory motocross and Supercross programme in the US, Ferrandis’ absence from the remaining races in 2022 Supercross will be less impactful from a visibility and presence perspective, regarding sponsors, because of the form of Eli Tomac and Christian Craig.
About Tomac, he is set to become the oldest ever Supercross champion in 2022, with his current 56 point lead meaning he could wrap the title up as early as next weekend in Foxborough.
Briefly back to a Ferrandis perspective, the Frenchman will also be looking to get in as much motocross testing and practice in before the season starts in May in order to be as best prepared as possible to defend his #1 plate against an Eli Tomac that is perhaps better than we have ever seen.
And Christian Craig, who is set to be the third 450MX rider for Star Racing in this year’s Pro Motocross season, is this weekend going to take part in one of the most anticipated events of the season: the first 250SX East-West Showdown. His dominance on the West Coast has been somewhat matched by Jett Lawrence’s on the East, and this weekend they will face-off against each other for the first time this year. Neither Craig nor Lawrence have much reason to go all-in on this race, with both trying to protect fairly large points leads, although it is notable that Craig’s closest challenger for the 250SX West title this season is Jett’s brother, Hunter Lawrence, who also rides for the same Team Honda HRC squad that Jett does on the East Coast.
That’s not to say that Jett Lawrence is about to t-bone Christian Craig at the first opportunity this weekend in Atlanta, but there is certainly a game to be played, and the #18 and HRC are certainly smart enough to play it. In fact, HRC would be dumb not to play it, as a sweep of the 250SX classes - especially with the Lawrence brothers, two of the most popular and marketable riders in the sport - would be a PR dream.
But all of that is beyond the interest of Ferrandis, although it is true that he seems to have a good relationship with his Star Racing Yamaha teammate, Craig. The reigning 450MX champion is now all-in on his title defence, and it needs to be a successful one after a generally torrid Supercross campaign in 2022.
