Of the twenty-five MXGP riders on the entry list for the opening round of the FIM Motocross World Championship at Losail, Qatar on March 1st the biggest question marks will be over the two new Red Bull IceOne Husqvarna racers, Tyla Rattray and Todd Waters. Waters is an ex-Australian Champion and at the age of 23 has only raced twice in Europe with two Motocross of Nations appearances for his country. Rattray on the other hand is a different matter. The South African competed in Grands Prix for eight years until 2008 when he claimed the MX2 title – beating an injured Tony Cairoli no less – and then departed to America, the AMA and a saddle in the coveted Pro Circuit team for another five seasons where he won races outdoors and made fleeting supercross podium appearances.
Naturally Rattray is a former Grand Prix winner even if Qatar will represent his very first foray in the premier class. Interestingly the 28 year old will be the only other factory rider of a 350cc machine when he steers the FC350 against world champion Cairoli on the 350SX-F KTM and potentially 23 other 450 four-strokes. “The 350 is amazing to ride. If I can get out of the gate….my plan is to be there and race Cairoli like I was doing in 2008,” he said. “We’ll see what we’ve got. I learned a lot racing in America and my fitness is probably the best it has been in my career.”
Rattray, who has worked with and continues to be guided by renowned trainer Aldon Baker, was keen to talk further on the virtues of his new works motorcycle that shares many components and a level of technology similar to the KTM: “The 350 can be ridden more like a 250 and you can wring its neck and push it. I think it helps when it comes to rough circuits and by the time you get to second motos at a GP the track can be hammered. Cairoli is a great, but I won’t know until Qatar where I am in relation to him. Desalle and Strijbos came over to America last year and Desalle’s best finish was a fifth but then he comes back and wins in Europe. If I compare the series’ then it is different racing, different tracks, different humidity. You need to be good on the day.”
“We have been doing a lot of testing,” he adds. “I think the 350 is fantastic for the GPs tracks that are not so fast and more technical. The team has been great and it is run very professionally. Antti [Pyrhonen, Team Manager and former GP racer] does a good job and we obviously have the backing of the factory in Austria. To be competitive you need to be on factory equipment and this was the best chance I had to come over and be on the type of technology that has done great for the last five years.”
Pyrhonen also enthused about the FC350 and also the wider repercussions of what the smaller displacement with its lower weight and racier handling and power delivery will mean for team. “It is a really awesome bike and it is great that we can provide that factory option to fast riders that might be coming from the MX2 class,” he said.
While Rattray is keen to see where his competitive level will re-establish his status at Grands Prix he is wise to the victory formula behind Cairoli (winner of the MX1 category since 2009) and of course has that invaluable experience of actually putting a championship-winning campaign together. “At the end of the day you need to have a solid structure around you and that is why Cairoli has been so successful,” he asserts. “He is fit, puts the work in and the whole thing around him is like a machine. He is ‘there’ every round. If he doesn’t win then he takes that second or third and always works towards the big picture and I was the same in 2008. I was bummed that I didn’t win on a weekend but after some races you can see the ball is rolling. Once that happens you know that you need to put sixteen or seventeen rounds together and keep in good shape.”
Photo by Juan Pablo Acevedo
