Challenging for victory at Sunday’s penultimate round of Penrite ProMX at Queensland Moto Park (QMP) will be critical for CDR Yamaha Monster Energy’s defending MX1 champion Aaron Tanti, who currently sits 20 points down on red plate-holder Dean Ferris with two rounds remaining.

Tanti commenced his bid for back-to-back titles on a positive note with the overall victory at Appin, but misfortune amidst a challenging outing at Wodonga saw him relinquish the lead and it’s been an uphill battle since if he is to retain the number one.

The YZ450F rider has delivered a number of podium results between rounds four through seven, but outlines the need to return to the top step this weekend at QMP to close the gap to leader Ferris, and second-placed Jed Beaton (Boost Mobile Honda Racing) with just two weekends remaining in the season.

“I’m coming into this weekend and I’m going for it,” Tanti told MotoOnline. “There are two rounds to go, so it’s now or never – I can’t really be conservative at this round. I need to win. I’ve done a lot of laps around QMP, so I am pretty comfortable and I know what I have got to do… I am going to be putting it all out there and giving it my best shot at beating the guys.”

The week after Toowoomba, Tanti competed in the opening round of the 2023 World Supercross Championship (WSX) in Birmingham, battling to seventh overall in SX2 after a heat race incident left him on the back-foot.

“World Supercross was obviously the weekend after Toowoomba, so I guess it was a little bit ago,” he added. “With the travel and stuff, it gave me a few weeks off and whatnot, so I got to reset and really get back into things fully.

“I’ve had a few good weeks training on motocross and it sort of kept it fresh a bit. I’m able to push along and keep moving forward, trying to get this championship under wraps. It makes it a lot easier the team is fully supporting me and whatnot, so there’s not really too much more to it. I’m ready to go.”

Tanti will be the sole CDR rider for the remainder of the outdoors, with Yamaha confirming that no replacement will be fielded in place of the injured Luke Clout. It’s expected that Clout will be back in time for the Australian Supercross Championship.

Round seven of this year’s ProMX season takes place this Sunday at QMP, before the final round of the championship will be contested one week later at Coolum on the Sunshine Coast between 19-20 August.