Rockstar Suzuki’s Clement Desalle has been in world championship winning form so far this season with a 100 per cent podium record but has watched Max Nagl, Ryan Villopoto and Gautier Paulin walk the top step of the box ahead of him.
In the five rounds of 18 in the 2015 MXGP term so far the consistent Belgian has posted 2-2-2-3-3 and sits just five points behind Nagl (the German has three wins, a second and a seventh) in the standings after owning the red plate for three events.
Despite his bright start to the year and form that has given the factory Suzuki team cause for encouragement (Desalle bounced back from crashes in Italy and a lack of ‘feeling’ in the sand in Holland) the 25 year old is getting impatient for his 20th Grand Prix win having tasted success every season in the premier class since 2009.
Desalle last won at the Grand Prix of Germany at Teutschenthal the previous summer before he had to curtail 2014 with a damaged scaphoid. “It is really important to be on the podium every week but, and I said this in the TV interview after the race, I miss winning!” he admitted at Valkenswaard. “I need to do it and I want this feeling again as soon as possible. I’m working for it and it is important too.”
The Suzuki man’s win rate since 2009 (that year was spent on a Honda, every season since has been with the RM-Z450) has seen him take at least two victories per term in a tricky ‘Cairoli era’ and where three of his seasons have been affected by injury. He claimed four GPs in 2011, ’13 and ’14.
He could count on the presence of team-mate Kevin Strijbos at Talavera de la Reina this weekend for the Grand Prix of Spain with the veteran racking up mileage on the works RM-Z – following his return from surgery on his right wrist – including an impressive win at the German ADAC MX at Jauer in Saxony at the weekend.
