Starts have been a huge strongpoint for the Lawrence brothers on their Honda HRC Progressive bikes, but a few times they have struggled to get traction over the starting gate if things are wet.
“For this Triple Crown, we had a lot of weather coming in,” said Lawrence. “The day started out really good, as I was P1 in qualifying. In the first race, I had a good start and checked out. In races 2 and 3, I just didn’t get the best starts, just couldn’t get the traction I needed, and made it tough on myself. When you don’t get a good start, you get put in not the best situations, and the last race kind of all came undone. I had a crash in the rutted whoop section, and then another rider hit my front wheel.”
“We’ll make sure that we do our due diligence to improve our starts in wet weather, especially since it’s possible that the last three rounds could be mud races,” said Team Manager Lars Lindstrom.
Lawrence is now up just one point on Roczen. The margins are super thin, which magnifies the importance of everything, including the weather.