Ken Roczen won two of the three rounds in the 2023 World Supercross Championship (WSX) and earned the series title for the second season in a row.
Roczen capped off the 2023 season with a victory in the Australian Grand Prix after winning the first two motos in the three-race format and sweeping the podium with a third-place finish in the final moto.
Roczen entered the round trailing Joey Savatgy for the points’ lead. After winning the British GP, Roczen struggled in Abu Dhabi. He crashed in Moto 1 of that round and finished only 14th. He was unable to make up enough ground in the combined points that weekend despite winning Moto 3. Roczen finished fourth as Joey Savatgy claimed the overall victory.
“I knew it was going to be tough,” Roczen said in the post-race news conference following his Australian GP victory. “With these races, you just never know what’s going to happen. I by no means came here taking it lightly. We made the absolute most it. We had a little adversity to fight through because I had some clutch problems yesterday and today and went with a completely different setup going into the heat race.”
Roczen’s gamble with the last-minute changes paid off and for the first time in his career, he successfully defended a title.
“I was able to slice and dice my way through and was able to win the first couple and in the last one I chopped the throttle on the start turn because it has not been fun in these first couple of turns. So I just played it safe and was buried really far in the pack. I was kind of surprised when the checkered flag came out but that’s just what happens when you’re in race mode. I wasn’t really paying attention to how many laps we had done.”
In Australia, it was Savatgy’s turn to struggle. He stood on the podium in the first moto with a third-place finish but failed to repeat that performance in Moto 2 or 3, ultimately scoring 22 fewer points than Roczen.
Savatgy had to settle for second in the championship standings for the second time in the two-year history of the WSX.
Dean Wilson finished third in the standings.
In SX2, the 250 division of the WSX, Max Anstie claimed the title over last year’s champion Shane McElrath.
Anstie had a perfect night, winning all three races over Luke Clout in Moto 1, and Cole Thompson in Motos 2 and 3.
McElrath’s bid for a second consecutive championship was undone early when he crashed in Moto 1 and earned only two points. He rebounded to finish strong in the second race with a podium finish of third but had a disappointing outing in the final race and earned only 32 points for the round compared to Anstie’s 76.
McElrath held onto second in the championship standings over Clout in third.
