MxLarge Story
Steven Lettani interview - LS Honda Driving Force
Interview Friday 17th June 2011 By Tom Jacobs
At last year’s Spanish GP, LS Honda Racing topped the MX1 podium with Tanel Leok. This season Bellpuig is no longer on the calendar, as it is been replaced by a new venue: La Baneza. However we found the timing fitting to catch up with LS Honda team owner/manager Steven Lettani.
Steven runs a successful Honda motorcycle dealership in Lier, Belgium and has been a motocross enthusiast all of his life.
Lettani’s competitive collaboration with Honda has yielded three MX1 GP wins and podiums in MX1, MX2 and WMX in the last two years, making LS Honda Racing the leading privateer team in the Motocross World Championship. While Steven never competed in GP’s himself his eye for talent and understanding of the sport is outstanding.
What do you think about the season until now?
Steven Lettani: "Looking back we had a very difficult start to the GP season, unexpectedly I might add. Especially because the pre-season had gone really well for both Ken De Dycker and Shaun Simpson. Ken suffered some technical problems on Saturday in Bulgaria. On Sunday he crashed and injured his back, that was a big blow for him in the first GP’s. Bigger than we anticipated anyway. We had hoped that Shaun would hit the ground running in the top class, but that’s been tougher as well. Although Shaun gelled with the CRF450R immediately we need some time to get man and machine working to their full potential. With Ken things are really falling into place now. In Portugal he was on of the fastest men on track. He pulled through twice from way back and stayed consistent. Those are the rewards for all the hard work he put in over the winter. Now we need to work on his start to have him closer to the frontrunners from the get-go.”
How do you feel about the current level in MX1?
Steven Lettani: “The pace is really, really high! It’s astonishing to see the level of racing with the established riders of the class and new, fresh talent coming in. The close racing we have now provides a great show for the fans. Except for Bobryshev and Simpson everyone in the top-16 has won a GP before! And of course Shaun and Boby have already been on the podium... That gives you an idea of the calibre of riders up there. Or just look at some of the great names who are struggling to achieve this season. With a top ten in standings, before you showed that you were a good rider, no more, no less. Now you need to be really, really good!! Clément Desalle and Tony Cairoli are a cut above the others, after that there’s a tight bunch where we hope De Dycker can mix it up in the second half of the season. Our target for Shaun is still top-10, it sounds ambition if you look at the standings but remember he already finished sixth in the US. I know he can do it.”
Ken De Dycker has been on the edge of top-5 performances in France and Portugal. Building from there he could be charging for podiums in the next GP’s. What do you expect from Shaun?
Steven Lettani: “As we all know, a lot of things need to ‘click’ in motocross to reach a great result. Being a rookie makes it even more complicated. From Shaun’s perspective It’s encouraging to see from his lap times and some qualifying races that the speed is there. Out of the six qualification races, he was in the top-10 half of the time, in France he was 4th. He clearly needs some time to untap that potential on race days. Miracles don’t exist. Shaun was quite late to get back on the bike after his shoulder injury. For the challenge MX1 is posing you, you need to be in your best shape physically and mentally. With Davide Guarneri we witnessed this learning process last year. Once he figured things out and learned to deal with this new pressure of maintaining his speed among the top-10 guys, he took it to the next level in the second half of the season and scored some top-5 results. There is no reason why Simpson can’t do the same! We have a nice tradition of getting the best out of our riders, so we’re going to do all we can to support Shaun.”
LS Honda Racing has also been racing in MX2 and WMX before. Do you have plans to take on other classes, maybe EMX2 in 2012?
Steven Lettani: “The European MX2 Championship is an exciting series, it’s well organized and it’s more interesting than before. However it takes a lot of time and effort to set up and run separate programmes properly. Even more so for a small group like ours. We are happy with we have achieved before, and it’s nice to see Ashley Fiolek do well in the US but right now all of our focus is on the MX1 World Championship. That’s where our partners want us to be and it’s where we feel most at home. (smiles) Playing with the big boys!”
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