Image: Jeremy Hammer (Foremost Media).

Serco Yamaha’s Mitch Evans put forward a glowing ride at round one of the Australian Supercross Championship in Queensland on Saturday night, surging to third in a nail-biting SX2 final.

One year on from a difficult beginning to his SX2 career at Jimboomba, Evans – using Factory Spec suspension for the first time – rode a composed race to round out the podium and challenged American Arenacross champion Gavin Faith for position in the closing stages.

“I didn’t finish off the motocross season as well as I would have liked, so I was pretty determined to get things rolling in the right direction here,” Evans explained. “We made a few changes to the bike throughout the day and my goal here was really to get out of Jimboomba safely as the last two times I have been here I have crashed out.

“So I’m stoked to get on the podium and the fact that I was able to close in on Gavin at the end of the race gives me some confidence going into the rest of the championship. Thank you to Serco Yamaha and my family for the huge effort getting ready for supercross and I look forward to some good racing at the coming rounds.”

The result was even more significant for Evans after missing much of his rookie SX2 campaign last year due to a broken wrist sustained at Toowoomba’s second round. Prior to that Evans was crowned the SXD champion in 2015 to signal his supercross capabilities.