Image: Octopi Media.

A strong opening round for Dylan Ferrandis saw him finish in third place at Fox Raceway’s 2023 Pro Motocross Championship opener, although the former 450MX champion feels that with more comfort and confidence on the 2023 YZ450F he ‘can do much better’.

Although Ferrandis missed the majority of the 2022 season and this year’s Monster Energy Supercross Championship, he made a solid return to the gates at the weekend’s opener, where the Frenchman raced to 3-3 in the motos to land himself P3 on the overall podium.

“Obviously, we made the podium with a bike that not everybody is very confident on,” Ferrandis told MotoOnline. “We’re coming back from injuries too, so I think the day that we’re confident and stronger on the bike, we can do much better.

“I really feel like in the first moto that I wasn’t even trying, I was just trying to understand what the bike was doing and I got massive arm-pump, so I was pretty far from 100 percent. I think the day we figure all of this out, I can fight with the Honda boys.”

Despite still adjusting to the new bike, Ferrandis expressed his satisfaction with the podium result at the opening round at Fox Raceway.

“When you come back from such an injury like I had, you never know what to expect,” he said. “So yeah, very happy. The last few weeks I was struggling a little with the bike, we did a lot of testing. The chassis on the new 2023 was very different compared to what I rode in 2021 and 2022, so we had to deal with that. I wasn’t expecting to be that great, but I made it work, so I’m very happy.”

Round two of the Pro Motocross Championship takes place this Saturday with the series heading to Hangtown. Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing’s Ferrandis currently sits third in the 450MX standings on 40 points, 10 behind series leader Jett Lawrence (Team Honda HRC).