Australia’s Hunter Lawrence is happy to get his MX2 World Championship debut ‘out of the way’ in an impressive first appearance with Team Suzuki.

A solid showing in pre-season has raised his profile and he showed everyone once again that his rookie campaign won’t just be learning the tracks, as he put down lap-times that should see him up at the very top of the field before very long.

Unfortunately, a couple of mistakes in the first moto dropped him down the proceedings but in the second moto he followed teammate Jeremy Seewer through the pack, learning every lap and finishing a very impressive sixth place.

“First moto I was feeling good,” Lawrence recalled. “I didn’t get the best start, top 15-20 something like that and I was coming through the pack pretty good and I was happy with how I was going. Then I made a mistake on my part with another rider, a rookie mistake. Got back up, finished 18th, which isn’t the best, but this is the world championship and it’s not going to be easy.

“I came back in, put it behind myself and looked forward to going out there and doing it again. Second race I got a better start around 12-13, made some passes and found myself inside the top 10, coming through to finishing sixth behind Jeremy. It felt like we had a good rhythm going as a Suzuki train, so that was pretty cool. Really though, I’m just happy to have got it out of the way, the first round can have a lot of carnage so I’m happy to be walking away with no injuries and to have made good progress.”

After registering 18th in the difficult first moto, Lawrence’s charge to sixth in the second leg enabled him to claim 11th overall for the round.