“Another interview?” are words that MXGP World Champion Romain Febvre has uttered a few times since his path to thirteen consecutive Grand Prix podiums, including eight victories, began to look more solid at the midpoint of the season. We did however want to pin the ‘461’ down to try and understand what is feels like to achieve so much, so fast and with such an emphatic effect. To become a star almost overnight even if his rise in Grand Prix has been building with the same gurgling momentum that thrust him to the forefront of the sport internationally once his confidence started to bubble over.

We have already looked at the reasons for Romain’s emergence and examined the character that allowed him to become champion material in a previous issue of OTOR but now we wanted the twenty-three year old to try and tell us about the impact of his achievements. Never an easy topic to articulate, especially when you get the feeling that Romain himself is still taking baby-steps in realisation himself and might not fully gain perspective and appreciation until he is on holiday somewhere after growing his legion of fans in the USA and then tenfold in France with his 1-1 at Ernée for the Motocross of Nations. We’ll have a go anyway…

 OK, so the morning after the Dutch Grand Prix at Assen and you are world champion. Was there a different feeling?

No, not really, it was the same as any morning but…I was so happy! The day you get the title it is difficult to understand everything that is going on around. Hard to take it all in. So each passing day after Assen I was thinking about it. The biggest difference was in the media demands and the amount of people that were talking about me. I didn’t change the world, the world around me changed. I dreamt about the title all my life and it happened. It is just so satisfying.

Assen was crazy but it built up to that. You have been more and more in demand since the middle of the year…

Yeah, we started the season slowly because I was not ready at the beginning. The results started coming quickly and I finished in some good positions early on when I knew I was not ready. So with good preparation and better settings on the bike I knew I could expect more from 2015. My confidence started to build and I always seemed to have a good feeling on the bike. Life became much easier.

The rider that started the year in Qatar and finished the championship at Assen: has he changed much?

No, no. My level of confidence yes, for sure, but for the rest there was no big personal change. I was riding at a good level and the bike was ready. The confidence adjusted things for me and it was a big part of the job.

To read the rest of the interview and see some more of Ray Archer’s jetski shoot click HERE