After impressing everyone in his rookie MXGP season, Australian rider Mitch Evans signed a multi-year deal at the end of 2020 to extend his stay with Team Honda.
He finished 14th overall in his debut world championship season in the 450cc MXGP class in 2020 and before that, in 2019, he claimed 11th overall in the MX2 class at world championship level.
He’ll be looking to improve upon that ranking he achieved in a pandemic-disrupted 2020 season.
A victory in the 2020 pre-season international race in Mantova, in Italy, gave everyone a glimpse at just how well Evans took to riding the new CRF450RW and he continued that form in the first MXGP of the season in Great Britain, going 3-7 for fifth overall.
Unfortunately, he suffered an injury at the second round and spent the break in the season recovering from the shoulder injury. In each of the next rounds, he worked his way up through the field, consistently inside the top 10 and regularly battling it out for top five positions before an injury in Spain when he was running fourth curtailed his season.
In 2019, Evans signed a one year deal for Team HRC, after an impressive rookie season racing the MX2 world championship.
Under the tutelage of Team Honda 114 Motorsports’ Livia Lancelot, Evans was able to get a podium on his very first outing at the MXGP of Patagonia-Argentina which he then backed up with another podium at round six in Portugal, where he got first taste of leading the field.
While injury meant he then missed almost a third of the season, he was still able to finish in 11th place in the championship, with only five riders having scored more podium placings.
Last year, Evans swapped his Honda CRF250R for the title winning CRF450RW as he stepped up into the MXGP class, joining gold medallist Tim Gajser under the Team HRC awning.
Evans was experienced on 450cc machines, having rode them in Australia in 2018, where he finished runner-up in the MX1 class in what was his rookie campaign.
It was this result, coupled with his excellent showing on a 450 at the 2018 Motocross of Nations in RedBud, in the United States, that convinced Honda to sign him to the MX2 world championships for 2019.
Photo courtesy Honda HRC
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