Fifth overall marked a convincing return from injury for Alex Larwood at Gillman, the Honda Racing MX2 recruit defying the odds less than two months after breaking his leg and undergoing surgery.

Larwood was injured in the opening race at Wonthaggi despite soldiering onto fifth, before withdrawing from the second moto and missing Horsham altogether with a broken fibula.

A quick recovery saw the Froth Honda Racing entry back on track for his first home round of the year in South Australia, immediately on-pace in qualifying third and then replicating that result in the opening encounter. He recovered from an early crash back to P12 in moto two – setting some of the race’s fastest laps in the process – for P5 overall.

“I definitely didn’t really expect too much out of this round,” Larwood told MotoOnline. “I got off to third in qualifying and then in the first race I was second for most of the race until Noah [Ferguson] got me in the last couple of laps, but I was pretty happy with that moto.

“Unfortunately in the second moto I was around fifth or sixth, but put it down and had to come back through the pack to 11th or 12th. Overall, the day was good… Last round I was sitting on the sidelines, but this round I’m back and pretty happy with that.”

Larwood now faces a race against time to increase his match fitness for Maitland’s first two-day event of the year from 24-25 May, but is confident that the extended recovery period and inspiration taken from his Gillman performance will lead to further improvements at round four.

“To be honest, I feel pretty much 100 percent,” he explained. “I did dab it on Thursday this week and it swelled up pretty bad, but it doesn’t really hinder me when I’m riding or anything like that. Hopefully I can take a little bit more time off now and get back to 100 percent. It’s been a pretty quick comeback, so to be able to prove to myself that I can run up there straight off the bat is pretty cool.”