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Ken Roczen won the opening round of the 2023 World Supercross Championship, which took place on Saturday 1 July at Villa Park in Birmingham.
The reigning world champion, riding his PMG Suzuki RM-Z450, carded one-two-one results in the three main events to stand atop the overall podium at the end of the British GP.
Roczen, was quickest in warm up and qualifying, but narrowly missed out on an extra championship point in the Superpole session, setting the second quickest time.
In the first of three main events he slotted into fourth place out of the gate, before making his way into second. Pressuring Vince Friese into a mistake, he took the lead and the win.
In the second race he again had to make passes to get into the podium positions and while he hunted down leader Friese, he ran out of laps to make the pass and took second place.
With all to play for in the final race, it began with an intense battle between Roczen, Friese, and Joey Savatgy, the trio going bar-to-bar. However, Roczen was able to get out front and break the group, taking the win and the overall victory.
The track wasn’t super technical but it was hard. And my starts weren’t where they needed to be so I gave myself some work and had to make some passes.
With the races being so short you had to make a plan on the fly and pass when you could and it got a bit close. But I was strong in the whoops and tried to stay low over the jumps. I had to push hard, and we’ve got some areas where we want to get better.
Making a second wildcard appearance at the British GP was SR75 World Team Suzuki. The team entered the SX2 class at last year's event, and this year entered into the 450 class with Charles Lefrancois onboard the RM-Z450.
No stranger to the team or Suzuki, having won an Arenacross title for them in the past, it was a tough ask to get up to speed with the championship mainstays, however, the Frenchman consistently improved his pace, going faster in every session.
He finished eighth in his heat race, and took a best finish of 16th from the three main events.