Image: Octopi Media.

After going 4-2 at Southwick for the fifth round of the 2021 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship, Team Honda HRC’s Ken Roczen said ‘we simply need to improve a little bit’ as he searches for bike settings amid limited testing.

In the opening moto of the day at Southwick, Roczen managed second place behind championship rival Dylan Ferrandis (Monster Energy Star Racing Yamaha).

In the second moto, he launched out of the gate to grab the holeshot and at one point led by over seven seconds, until a charging Eli Tomac (Monster Energy Kawasaki) tracked him down and went on to win.

The German-born rider went on to address how he was feeling at the Massachusetts round after the race.

“Obviously Eli [Tomac] was on another level than us,” Roczen explained. “I was struggling with my bike all day today, I didn’t gel with the bike nor with the track.

“You know what you’re going to get coming to Southwick, I always expect that it will be kind of slick, but then you go on the track and I feel like it’s 10-times worse. I made some changes for the second moto and definitely wasn’t loving it.

“But in general, I’ve been limited with testing, just being down in Florida I haven’t really done anything, and we simply need to improve a little bit.

“At some tracks, I can manage it and muscle my way through a little bit better, but I wasn’t good enough, I actually struggled today.

“Even though qualifying practice may have looked good, I was coming in like ‘dude I need to figure something out.’ Having said that, of course coming away with a second-place I was fine with it.”

Roczen led the championship early in the season and has yet to finish outside of the top five overall, but he’s hoping to get some testing in as the series approaches the halfway point this weekend at Spring Creek.

“I just mainly want to get my bike better a little bit,” he continued. “Having said that you can’t really just take [Southwick] as what it is. This is kind of a one-off track when it comes to the soil, so I’m not stressing about it.

“Even the [setting] that I raced with, well it’s actually the same stuff as High Point and RedBud. So I’m going to try and figure something out but like I said being in Florida makes it obviously a little bit more difficult.

“The weather that we’ve had too, I actually had an option shock to try that never showed up due to weather, so I’ve just been limited. But at the same time, I’m not afraid of sticking to what I have and I can make it work.”

Roczen is now 19 points back from Ferrandis in the standings as the series resumes this Saturday at Spring Creek in Millville, Minnesota.