Around this time last year Clement Desalle and his Monster Energy Kawasaki team were staring at x-rays and medical assessments. The Belgian had broken his left arm at the Valence International and only two weeks before the first Grand Prix of the season. Aside from a cold that blunted his performance at Hawkstone Park nearly two weeks ago the current situation could not be more of a contrast for the 27 year old.
Fresh from victory at the LaCapelle International Desalle is now fully settled with the KX450F (in its second year after an overhaul for 2016) and with the Dutch-based KRT squad. #25 gathered two podium finishes and a maiden victory in green last season in what was a work-in-progress for the most part and after recovery from the arm and back issues. Speaking to the former world championship runner-up and winner of twenty GPs – making him the second most successful rider behind Tony Cairoli this decade – Desalle also claims that facing each Grand Prix with renewed approach will be a factor in his bid to finally clasp the premier class crown; something for which he has been in regular contention since a breakthrough term in 2009.
“I know what I want and I know my character so it won’t always be possible to have a good weekend every weekend but I will try my best so that everything goes in the best way possible,” he explained. “Last year I wasn’t so positive when we got to Assen. I saw the track and went back to the team and wasn’t very happy. But every time I went out on the bike I got faster and took the track as I found it…I ended up winning the GP; so I have to be positive and I know that things can improve.”
After owning Grands Prix on Honda and Suzuki machinery in the past Desalle feels he has dialled in the KX450F to the point where he can talk about consistency. In 2016 he was not the regular force at the front of MXGP as he had been in the previous seven years but the Kawasaki-Desalle combination should have matured and enriched. “Sometimes you get on a new bike and everything goes well and you only have to make a couple of setting changes but we had to work quite a lot – around the middle of the season as well – to make the bike and myself more as ‘one’. I feel better with it now,” he says.
Along with Tony Cairoli, Tim Gajser, Romain Febvre, Gautier Paulin and perhaps Max Nagl, Desalle is the other name in many people’s minds for the world championship. While typically cautious with his prospects, Clement has been around the game and in pursuit of his fellow athletes, Cairoli in particular, to know the base ingredients to make the top grade. “I have the experience and this will be important this year because there are nineteen Grands Prix,” he states. “To be fit, consistent, without injuries or big drops [in form] and making good starts is key. Many things have to happen and come together for the championship.”
Photos by Ray Archer
