SuperMotocross Statistics | 2024 Detroit

Detroit, Michigan, allowed fans to take stock of what has happened in 2024’s Monster Energy Supercross series thus far, as the on-track action was not quite as extraordinary as the four rounds prior. That is not to say that an abundance of stories did not emerge from Ford Field – one particular champion has stormed headlines in the last 48 hours.

This ‘Supercross Statistics’ feature on Vital MX is designed to pave over the cracks and draw attention to points of interest that would have been skipped. The 2000 words below will add additional layers to the viewing experience as the circus that is 2024 Monster Energy Supercross marches on to the delight of the extensive fanbase.

• Jett Lawrence just took his second pole position as a premier class star. Adam Cianciarulo is the lone man, of the current competition, who is able to squawk about achieving such a feat sooner. ‘9’ started his tenure in the 450SX division with seven consecutive pole positions. In fact, he secured more poles in his first seven races than Justin Barcia has in 153 starts. Cianciarulo has qualified in fifth on average in his 35 starts.

• Cooper Webb reaffirmed the fact that his raw pace has been bolstered since his return to the Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing camp, as he was ranked inside of the top two in qualification for the first time in more than two years. It was in Salt Lake City on 24 April, 2021, that Webb was last so potent in the timed portion of the show. Note that ‘2’ was just 0.009 slower than Lawrence and his lap time was posted in the slower second session.

• Chase Sexton has competed in five rounds and not secured pole position at all, his longest successive streak without leaping atop the 450SX time sheets. In contrast, however, he qualified in the top three for the 26th time in a row. The streak has been intact since Atlanta’s round of 2022’s Monster Energy Supercross series (held on April 16). Sexton has qualified in third on average since he moved to the premier division.

• There is rather little to note from Lawrence’s dance in Detroit – he was near perfect in the main event with two errors standing out as the only blips on his record. Even those did not cause his lead to be called into question: he led every lap for the second time this term. A trend with Lawrence is that he tends to execute once at the head of the field. The last time that he failed to transform a lap led into a win, excusing events that featured the Triple Crown format, was on June 21, 2020.

• Lawrence did well to establish a nice buffer over Sexton in the first three laps – the former retaliated as soon as the dust settled down and closed in on laps six and seven. It seemed like a battle could have been on the cards, but Lawrence pulled away more than not in the laps that followed. Ken Roczen is featured in the table that covers this period, because he was quicker than both riders on certain laps.  ’94’ took third on lap seven, for clarity.

• Lawrence was the fastest rider on track on 16 of the 28 laps in the main event. Roczen was the best on four of those laps, Sexton three times and Aaron Plessinger twice. Jason Anderson and Webb were the quickest on one apiece. It will come as a surprise that Lawrence was not the fastest in any of the sectors. Roczen topped three of the five sectors – Malcolm Stewart was rather effective in sector one and Plessinger shined in sector three.

• A win in Detroit elevated Lawrence’s career numbers to 15 main event victories, 25 podiums, 30 top five finishes and 35 top ten finishes. In addition, his total number of laps led shot past 300 (28 laps led in Detroit took his career total from 290 to 310). Lawrence has led at least one lap in 20 different main events, which means that he has led in 54% of his races. Weird to think that he has lined up at just 37 rounds of Monster Energy Supercross, no?

• Eli Tomac was on quite the decline in Detroit’s main and understanding the way in which that unfolded will require some work. Tomac posted his fastest lap, the fourth-fastest of the main, on the fourth lap and so that was his peak. Some would be quick to state that he was a contender in the initial moments, but this scribe differs on the topic. Peruse his lap times in comparison to Sexton and it is so abundantly clear that he “lost the tow” with immediate effect.

• The reason for utilizing Sexton as a benchmark is to provide further transparency. To compare anyone to the race winner would provide an unbalanced perspective. Note that Tomac was faster than Sexton on two of the laps in the period underlined above but consider that there are no further examples of that. Sexton was faster on 26 of the 28 laps that were run in the main event. This indicates that those laps were outliers, rather than evidence that ‘3’ was on a positive path.

• It was on the ninth lap that Tomac overtly slowed: he recorded a 46.183 and failed to better that in the 19 laps that followed. The difference to Sexton is more striking in the table below. It is crucial to note that Tomac fell to fourth on lap nine and such relevance makes it unlikely that he would have realized that all was lost – one would presume that he was desperately attempting to find his feet at this point. Swimming upstream, perhaps?

• Combine the data above and the moderate decline is so obvious. In fact, that is an apt way to describe the troublesome tale as his sector times do not make for an atrocious read. There is a bit of data that perplexes this scribe, nonetheless, and that is the lap time that he published with five minutes left on the clock. Tomac did a 47.886 on the 23rd lap – he had not gone as quick as that since the 15th lap (46.893). Look at the times surrounding that 47.886 and attempt to make sense of it.

• Dylan Ferrandis just ended in the top ten at the fifth event in succession. To attach such a statistic to a former champion like Ferrandis seems redundant, but he has never done that in the premier division. Before Detroit, his best streak of top ten finishes was four (races six to nine in 2022’s Monster Energy Supercross season). Consistency should be a priority for Ferrandis, who has had a horrid time of it in the years since his 250SX West crown.

• There were some milestones in Detroit, although neither star would be in the mood to celebrate. The fifth stop of 2024 Monster Energy Supercross marked Justin Barcia’s 180th start in the series, as well as the 195th start for Tomac. Tomac will reach 200 in the next month, but Barcia must wait for 2025. Fortunately, his participation in that season has already been announced via a new contract with the GASGAS squad.

• Christian Craig (13th) and Kyle Chisholm (16th) were the only athletes who pulled season-best results in Detroit. Mitchell Harrison (18th) and Tristan Lane (19th) qualified for a main event for the first time in 2024’s Monster Energy Supercross season. 30 riders have appeared in a premier class main across the first five rounds. There has not been a total as high as that after round five since 2019: 31 riders had transferred at the same point in that season.

• So much was made of how close the top five was after four rounds, but that still rings true with round five in the rear-view mirror. 14 points separate the top five – the most recent example of something similar to that is 2020 (18 points covered the top five in that series). All fans could do was dream of a scenario like this in the 2000s. Look at the difference between first and fifth after round five in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

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