Image: James Lissimore.

Team France led the way following Saturday’s trio of qualifying races at the 2023 Monster Energy Motocross of Nations (MXoN), with Australia positioned third and defending champions, USA, sixth.

The qualifying races today decided the 19 teams that will head straight into tomorrow’s races, while the rest will battle it out for the final spot in the B final tomorrow morning.

While it was Team France who qualified best as a nation with three strong performances, the individual qualifying race wins went to Team Spain’s Jorge Prado (MXGP), Team France’s Tom Vialle (MX2) and Maxime Renaux (Open).

In the MXGP, Prado reminded to his rivals why he was the new MXGP world champion, sprinting away at the front to win ahead of AMA Pro Motocross 450MX champion Jett Lawrence, who worked his way forward from as far back as P7, and Jeremy Seewer, with Ken Roczen fourth. Aaron Plessinger took P8.

The MX2 race was won by double world champion Vialle, from early leader Simon Laengenfelder, Australian Hunter Lawrence, Kay de Wolf and Team USA’s RJ Hampshire, who took the holeshot before going down on the opening lap and making a strong recovery.

Finally, it was French standout Maxime Renaux who won the Open class qualifier, comfortably in front of Ruben Fernandez, Liam Everts, Harri Kullas and American Christian Craig, while unfortunately Dean Ferris – rider okay – registered a 33rd-place score after crashing heavily while inside the top-five in the opening laps.

Detailed results