Mitch Evans was once one of Australia’s brightest hopes on the world stage, climbing quickly through the ranks and earning a ride with the Factory HRC and later Kawasaki MXGP teams. But his journey took a cruel turn after a devastating wrist injury which ultimately led him to step away from Grand Prix racing altogether in 2023.
In this honest and in-depth interview — conducted by Kevin Frelaud of DailyMotocross.fr — Evans speaks candidly about the long road of surgeries and setbacks, the physical and mental toll of his injury, and how stepping away from racing helped him reconnect with who he is off the bike. He also discusses his return to riding, finding joy again through Supercross and the ADAC MX Masters series, and his new life in Europe.
Mitch, obviously we know you left the GP paddock in 2023 on a wrist injury, while you had the ride at Factory Kawasaki. That injury I think was prior to that move actually, from Honda HRC days. Can you tell us what actually happened with that wrist at the time and what was the extent of the injury?
Evans: Yeah, so first I broke my wrist in Spain in October of 2020. I had the first surgery the next day in Milan and the surgery wasn’t very good. When I broke it, we had the x-ray at the track, and the doctor there said it would be an easy fix: ‘just plate and you’re good to go’. Then when we went and had the surgery in Milan, they told me the surgery will take 45 minutes to an hour, and I was in there for like three and a half hours, because once they opened it up they realised how bad the break was.
Then after the surgery the doctor told me ‘just wait three weeks and you can start riding again’, but after three weeks I still had so much pain. After eight weeks, I still wasn’t back on the bike and my wrist still looked like it had an S-bend in it; I was in so much pain and it was really unstable.
At that time it was COVID, and getting back to Australia was really difficult. That’s the only reason why I didn’t go back to Australia immediately to have the surgery. I finally was able to go home. We got the scans and my wrist was still dislocated, there was a lot of bone missing.
So basically I destroyed the end of my radius, the joint surface, and it just smashed into pieces. The way that my doctor explained it to me was: ‘it’s like your dog has eaten a jigsaw puzzle. You can kind of tell where the pieces go, but it doesn’t really all fit back together’.
So I had another surgery to try and fix it, because at the time I was only 22 years old and I wanted to keep a normal wrist. We did that one surgery, and after three months, I started riding again. My doctor said I just had to try and see if it gets any better he said you just have to try and ride and see if it gets better. So then I did that, it didn’t really get any better, so then I went back to him and I had a partial fusion.
So you have two joints in your wrist, and they fused the largest joint. And then I came back at the end of 2021 to try and race again, and I still had a lot of pain then, and it wasn’t until I got a cortisone injection after – I think – round two that it finally gave me some sort of relief. But then I had to get the injection every three months, and take a lot of painkillers every day, and it was just really painful.
At the time, I still had a little bit of movement in my wrist then, but whenever I’d ride it would just aggravate, and then I couldn’t really do anything. So that was all 2022, and then at the end of 2022 I got the plate out, because I thought maybe the pain was coming from the plate that was in there. And in the beginning it was better, I had less pain when I was riding, but then the more I started to ride, especially once the season started, the worse it got.
And I also was having trouble with the bike setup, because when the forks weren’t working well enough, then it would take more force on my wrist, and then it would make my wrist worse. At the time, I didn’t have much movement left in my wrist, so I couldn’t push against the handlebars, I had to really try and hang on, and it just wasn’t really working. And then by the time I stopped after Turkey in 2023, I had carpal tunnel syndrome. After like two laps I couldn’t feel the handlebars anymore. So with the year, how difficult it was, I finally said, okay, we stop. I just stopped.
I didn’t know whether I wanted to keep racing or not at that point. I wanted to see if my wrist would get better before I went and had another surgery, because I had already had like four surgeries at that point. And I took about six months off. It didn’t really get any better, and in the end I got another surgery.
This surgery was a full fusion, so it means I’ll never have movement in my wrist again. And that’s why I was very cautious about wanting to do it, because once you do that, there’s no going back. I had the said surgery and six weeks later, I got back on the bike. I had a little bit of pain in my wrist, but it was in a different place to what I normally had.
The more that I rode, the less pain I had, because my hand started to strengthen, and the pain that I had was coming in like the meaty part of your hand. And it was only because I hadn’t ridden, I hadn’t even used my hand for basically a whole year, that my hand just had no strength. So once I got strength in my hand again, then I no longer have pain, and I no longer noticed the lack of movement.
I have no movement in the wrist now, whereas before I maybe had like 30 or 40 degrees of range of motion, and I really noticed it when I was riding at first, but now I don’t really notice it. Anyway, that’s the full story, and I don’t think I’ve actually ever told anybody.
How’s the wrist today?
Evans: Perfect, better than ever. I’m very grateful that the surgery that I had last year has gotten rid of my pain, and that in my day-to-day life I don’t have pain anymore. But I also wish that I had gotten this surgery done when I first went back to Australia in 2020.
But at the time I had just turned 22, and when the doctor told me ‘we can fully fuse your wrist’ I wasn’t really up for it. You don’t really want to hear this or even think about this. So I tried to keep a normal wrist for as long as I could, but if I had my time over again, then I would have had this surgery done straight away, and I wouldn’t have missed the 2021 season, because I would have been back on the bike after 6 weeks, and I wouldn’t have been taking painkillers every day, but that’s life.
Obviously when you left the GP paddock, we kind of lost track of you for a while. What was life like for you during that time? I guess the whole plan you had in mind when you came over to Europe pretty much got taken away from you on that injury. So what did you do, then?
Evans: Yeah, I mean, that injury really complicated a lot of things during 4 years for me. Initially I was really upset that I wasn’t going to be racing anymore. I think everyone’s biggest dream is to become world champion. Anyone who rides motocross wants to be world champion.
But maybe 1% of people achieve that. If I die without achieving that, I knew I could live like. But the one that really, really hurt me was not standing on the podium in the MXGP class.
I was able to do it in MX2, but I hadn’t quite achieved it in MXGP. And that was what I was really, really upset about, really scared about stopping, was that maybe I’ll never be able to achieve that. Then after a couple of weeks I got over that, and I realized that my favourite type of training is going to the gym and trying to get as big as possible.
So I was excited that I could go to the gym and get as big as possible for the first time ever. Once I moved up to the 250 class, I was like quite a big guy for motocross. So I was always conscious about trying to be as light as possible because when you race guys that are like 65 kilos and you are 85 kilos, it’s a bit of a disadvantage.
So I was really excited for that and I went to the gym for like 10 weeks even though my wrist was really sore and I put on like 6 or 7 kilos and I felt great, better than ever. So yeah, I just did that and moved to Germany, got married and just started living life as a normal person. Then, once I got my wrist fixed, I started riding again. Your body forgets the pain and everything pretty quickly.
From then on, I started to enjoy riding for the first time as well. In the past, when I was racing GP’s after my wrist injury, I would have to psych myself up every day to go training because I knew what pain I was about to go through. Whereas now I can ride the bike and enjoy it for what it is now.
So like even just getting out of bed in the morning is way easier for me now.
It’s hard for us to picture what’s going on behind closed doors. You guys are athletes, but like you said you are also a normal person. Mentally, it must have been really hard for you in 2023. Did you think you would quit racing for good at the time or a comeback still was in the back of your head?
Evans: If you spoke to me this time last year, I would have told you I’m done. I’m never racing again. Funny story, I was sitting with my wife having dinner with the Kawasaki test rider from Japan because he lived in Australia for many years so he’s like half Australian and he was doing testing with the team at the end of 2023.
So this was only like a couple of weeks after the season ended and I told them both, I’m never racing like professionally again. Maybe I do a club day here and there, but I’ll never race a GP again. And they both said to me at that dinner: ‘Mitch, for sure you will race again one day’.
Well, like I said, I struggled in the beginning but then once I got over that, I didn’t really mind because I’m not somebody who enjoys being in the spotlight that much. So actually having my ass in the couch at home watching the races, I was happy with and I was happy to take a break from it all. I don’t think it would have been the same if the situation had been different and I stopped because I just didn’t get a ride for instance; that would have been a struggle to accept. But I stopped because I was in so much pain that I didn’t want to ride anymore, because it wasn’t enjoyable.
For me, all I saw was that I didn’t have to deal with the pain every day, then it made it so much easier. Once I had my wrist fixed… even making eggs in the morning, I was no longer in pain.
I could ride a bicycle, I’d go cycling again, go to the gym, could do things like that. You forget what you endured pretty quickly and then the hunger starts to come back; I started to ride again.
At first, the agreement with the team I am with now was ‘hey, just find the enjoyment again for it’. But, yeah, we found the enjoyment pretty quickly. And now I’m like, umm, okay, maybe I want to come back full time.
But the biggest thing that I struggled with when I stopped was I went to like full dad bod mode. Like I said, my favourite thing to do is go to the gym, but I couldn’t because I was in so much pain. And if I could have gone to the gym and stayed like fit and healthy, then, yeah, it would have been nice. But I didn’t just want to cycle all day, every day. And because even cycling, like I couldn’t. I would have to sit on like tri bars because I couldn’t to an handlebar, like put the weight through my wrist.
But anyway, we live and we learn. Everything that I’ve been through, I’m really grateful for it because it’s taught me a lot of life lessons and it’s made me who I am and made me a better person in the end.
I want to talk about your program a little bit because I saw you race some German Supercross in the beginning of the year. You raced in Harfsen, now we see you in the GP paddock. I’m unsure of the deal you have with the team you are in right now. What’s the program like ?
Evans: So our main focus is the ADAC Masters Championship. Initially, the team contacted me the Tuesday before Stuttgart Supercross. ‘Hey, are you interested in racing this weekend?’.
I told them: I’ve ridden twice in the last like 13 or 14 months. I have not ridden Supercross since 2018. Maybe it’s not such a good idea.
They told me to just come try the bike and see for Dortmund Supercross. At the time, I still didn’t want to race anymore. Anyway, I went, tried the bike. Of course, I love riding Supercross … So then we went to the south of France and rode a few more days with Aranda and Maillard, and I had a lot of fun doing that.
Then I said okay, let’s go to Dortmund. I was coming off my full dad bod, my fitness wasn’t great. But that weekend was just to go and have fun and enjoy it. Racing in a stadium, the atmosphere is awesome. We actually went and watched the race in 2024. Just sitting in the stands, I was like, wow, the atmosphere is so good here with the crowd. Like the German fans are really awesome for that. And so it was nice to be on the other side of that, down on the floor.
After Dortmund the team were like ‘Did you have fun? How was it ? Do you want to race the ADAC Masters?’. Yeah, I had a lot of fun, I started to enjoy riding a lot more and just getting back into more of a routine. So I said, let’s do it.
But then again, I wasn’t really good. I pretty much came out of the couch and raced some Supercross, and it had been 15 months or so since my last gate drop. And then when you’re so tired in the stadium as well, it was really difficult. The first night, I wasn’t really in a race mind, I wondered if I should even be there. The second night, I knew I should be here, and I made it into the mains the following 2 nights.
I just needed to get as many gate drops as possible. We did a winter cross in Germany, a local club event at Tensfeld and also did Harfsen. And maybe I was wishing I didn’t do Harfsen [laughs]. Time practice was good. And then the race, the track was completely different. And I haven’t ridden anything like that in so long that I just struggled with arm pump the whole day.
Talking to you, I guess you’re going to say no. I feel like there is no pressure for you being back in the paddock today. But do we have expectations for the weekend in Arco?
Evans: Yeah, honestly, I would love to get a top 10. But there’s no pressure. This is, again, a pre-season race for me because our main focus is the ADAC.
My bike is completely standard. So we have an ECU. And we only got that like two weeks ago.
Yeah, I’d be stoked with a top 10. And we see from there. Like I said, I haven’t raced in so long. So I just need to get as many gate drops as possible. And just try and learn every race.
To me, it seems crazy that someone from Australia would be willing to come and live to Europe and in Germany. I think I understand your wife is German. Is that the reason you’re now living in Europe? Because I guess if you wanted to keep a career in motocross, you’ve got everything you need in Australia. The scene is pretty big, I guess. You also have motocross, supercross and some really good riders down there. Yeah. But you decided to live in Europe and then race the ADAC championship.
Evans: Yeah. Well, when we decided to live in Germany, at that time I wasn’t interested in racing again. So I didn’t really care. I love Europe, and I know I can go back to Australia any time I want. So why not make the most of it while I can? So I remember one guy, Sylvain, he used to be at Alpinestars. He’s French as well. And he was telling me that he’s done all the sightseeing everywhere else in Europe except for France. But why is that? Because you’re from France, it’s not so spectacular to you guys. Or you can go and do it whenever you want because that’s where you’re from.
I see it like that. I can go back to Australia whenever I want. So why not make the most of it while I can over here? At the end of 2018, before I moved over here, I was just dying to get out of Australia. I love the seasonal changes. I love the daylight changes so much more. Because where I’m from in Australia, you have like one hour difference.
Sometimes in the middle of winter, it’s quite difficult. And in Australia, where I’m from, our winter is like 25 degrees every day. But yeah, like I said, I love the culture, seeing all the different cultures and everything. So why not make the most of it while you can?
You burst onto the scene pretty quickly. I think you came in with Livia Lancelot back in the days and then it snowballed from here. You were in the spotlight and then you disappeared. Is it something that’s hard to swallow as a rider, as an athlete, like being in the spotlight and suddenly not being in the spotlight anymore and not being talked about? Because in the sport, you get forgotten pretty quickly.
Evans: Yeah, very quickly you get forgotten. As for the spotlight, it’s not that I didn’t like it. It’s just that it doesn’t bother me whether I’m in it or not.
Like the whole social media thing. If I didn’t have to have it, I wouldn’t have social media. I think maybe I’m on Instagram like a couple of minutes per day. My wife takes care of more of it than I do. All those things I don’t really mind.
I don’t care that I’m forgotten because my wife says that I’m autistic sometimes. Autistic people are really smart so it’s not a bad thing to say. It’s more because I just like to be by myself. I hate socializing and whatnot.
I don’t think of myself as somebody who’s weird to socialize or talk to people unlike some other riders or socially awkward people. But for me, I also would love to just sit at home and nobody speak to me for weeks on end. But then when I do get out, it’s like I have no problem with this.
It’s not like I hate it. But just being at home with my wife and my dog is enough for me to be happy.
You seem unfazed…
Evans: Honestly, I don’t really care about too much in a way, which sounds bad. I guess it’s like with me eating, my wife says I’m really difficult. But to me, it’s easy because chicken and rice, same thing every day.
What’s so hard about that? So that’s what I mean. Always at home, we’re like, do we want to go out? Do we want to do this? And we’re always like, no, no, no.
But then when we get out, we’re like, okay, we’re here, we’re enjoying it. To me, it doesn’t matter. I can sit at home and just be by myself and I’m happy.
I think you’re 26 years old today. Are we still aiming at, are we actually being able to make a living out of racing nowadays? Is it still the career plan or do we think in two or three years from now, I don’t know, I’ll do something else. There’s another path for me somewhere.
Evans: Yeah, good question. It’s difficult to make a living, or at least a decent living here out of racing unless you’re the top guy.
But I wouldn’t be coming back here if I didn’t believe that I could be better than what I was before. I was able to win a qualifying race in 2022 with the amount of pain and bad movement in my wrist that I had. And now the surface area of how I’m able to hang on to the handlebars is better, so it’s easier to ride and I don’t have the pain anymore.
So I know that I could be better than what I was then. And also I feel like myself, I was always a little bit like a late bloomer, if you want to say. Yeah, I was a big dude.
I moved to a 450 really early, but I feel like I didn’t really have my man strength. Whereas now I feel like I’m finally getting my man strength and I can actually throw around a 450 now. So I feel like my best years are still to come.
Maybe next year we’re back here full time, that would be pretty cool.
Alright, so is Arco the only GP on the calendar for now?
Evans: Well, maybe we do Switzerland next weekend, depending on the weather, because we have limited parts. So if it’s going to be muddy, then maybe we don’t do it. But I’ll do Teutschenthal, because that’s home GP for the team as well. And then maybe we see later in the year how much I’m enjoying racing. If we want to do Lommel and Arnhem, just some of the close ones. And maybe there was some talk about doing the last couple of rounds, because one of them is Australia of course.
No German Supercross on the horizon for you?
Evans: I would like to do that again. I’m sure if I have a MXGP ride for next year, then I’m probably not allowed to do that. But I think maybe if we end up in contract talks, then maybe we can find an agreement where I’m able to do that as well. Because I had a lot of fun doing that and I would like to do it again.
