Team Suzuki World MXGP’s Ben Townley has reflected on his challenging return to the FIM Motocross World Championship following the 2016 season opening round in Qatar.

The New Zealander kicked off his 2016 MXGP campaign with a costly error, hitting the starting gate and finding himself in last position on lap one before making an impressive charge back to the top 10.

“I went with the guy next to me and hit the gate, stupid, I haven’t done that in years,” said Townley. “There are a lot of positives to take out of the first moto because I went from 21st to 10th on the first lap and I was able to ride with guys who were championship contenders.”

Townley eventually finished moto one in 11th place before his tough luck continued when he experienced a mechanical issue during the moto two sighting lap, forcing the use of his back-up bike for the race.

“The second moto was just a cock-up,” Townley explained. “I went for the sighting lap and we had a mechanical so I had to use the back-up bike and it was a huge lesson for us as a whole team. Stefan [Everts] said that in 18 years of racing he never had to use the back-up machine – so we learnt a lot.”

Finishing 11th in moto two on his spare bike and 11th overall for the weekend, Townley is taking the positives away from the weekend and admits he was feeling slightly rusty on return at the challenging circuit.

“The bright points were that we made a change overnight with the bike and then again between warm-up and the first moto and the guys nailed it,” he added. “It was pretty good and we made progress.

“I felt like I had a lot of cobwebs and rust in the system and it was a really tough track for me to have my first race. It was so tricky and I think ‘treacherous’ would be a good word for it; there were literally potholes on the track.”

Townley’s Team Suzuki World MXGP teammate Kevin Strijbos was eighth overall with an 8-9 moto score card.