For defending World MX2 champion Andrea Adamo, the start of the 2024 season hasn’t been great. Stuck down in fifth place in the championship standings and on 139 points, he is already 72 points behind series leader Kay De Wolf.

One podium finish in Spain and just one Sunday moto win, the Italian did make an improvement scoring a win in the Saturday qualification race in Trentino, but then finished with 7-6 in the two races the following day.

“After yesterday I was confident for today,” Adamo said in Trentino. “This is the way it is, and we cannot change the result. The speed was there, and everything was on-point, but I didn’t make the best starts. It was really difficult to pass. I made a mistake in the first moto, and I was in the middle of the mess at the start of the second. We’ll recover, relax and work in the next weeks now to reset the motivation for Portugal.”

In Sardinia Adamo had a lot of bad luck, scoring 12th in the qualifier on the Saturday, then putting a strong fourth in the opening moto, before he was disqualified from the second moto, while running for a podium finish in the overall results.

“I knew I was not ready in Argentina, and I was even surprised about my Quali race there, but today in the second race we saw the results of the winter. It was still a tough weekend here, but the feeling arrived, and I had a better start. I am getting better and better, and I cannot wait for the next Grand Prix. I am not at my best level yet.”

Spain wasn’t too bad with a moto win and a podium finish, but a GP victory was very much something that the Red Bull KTM factory rider is waiting for in the near future.

“A pretty good weekend for me. I struggled on Saturday to find the right set-up but on Sunday we made some adjustments, and I had two good and solid motos to go 4-3, which would have been normally 3rd overall! Unfortunately, near the end of the second moto I went wide and off the track and the only way to rejoin was to go through the pitlane, but the rules say that you have to stop if you go through it. I thought it was a bit too much to disqualify me.”

Argentina started well with Adamo getting a third in the qualification race, but on the Sunday, it was 8-5 result for fifth overall. Not terrible, but not what a defending champion is looking for. Adamo though knows that you cannot win the World championship, but you can lose it and he wasn’t taking any risks.

“So-so weekend. We showed some pretty good speed on Saturday, but things were not really on-point today. We need to work on a few areas, but this is only the first Grand Prix of twenty. We have to keep building and aim for improvement every race. We want to fight for podiums and wins so the goal is to be closer to that in Spain.”

Now, with his team-mate Liam Everts winning in Trentino, maybe that is enough to boost the confidence of the champion and he can come out swining in Portugal in a little over a weeks time.

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