David Vuillemin has described the decision to take Maxime Renaux over Dylan Ferrandis as “pretty incomprehensible given the state of form and performance,” as the fall out from the French team selection continues following Dylan’s social media post yesterday.
Vuillemin, it has to be acknowledged, is a self-confessed big supporter of AMA over MXGP and coached Dylan until recently and the bias seems to be showing slightly.
Ferrandis is also an awesome rider who would have done fantastic, but he wasn’t at his best form all year until the last couple of AMA rounds when he finally looked back to his real speed. Meanwhile, Renaux was on form at the beginning of the year and has already had a P3 in an MXGP moto, with Herlings Gajser and Prado behind him, while still not fully fit upon his return from injury (two 6th overalls).
Renaux is doing it in an MXGP class twice as deep with top tier talent as AMA MX this year, thanks to the lengthy injury list in the US series. Conseqently, it is easier for Dylan to get a top three in America than for Renaux to top three in MXGP in 2023 – and Renaux has GP win to his name this season. It certainly isn’t a drop in level to go from Ferrandis to Renaux with the latter still four more GPs to race while Ferrandis won’t have any pure MX races after this weekend until the MXoN with AMA now ready to go into SMX mode.
And let’s not forget at Red Bud last year, Renaux won his class and won the final moto against all the 450s including Prado, Tomac, Sexton and Jett Lawrence.
Yet, despite all his success in winning an MX2 world title then winning races in his 450 rookie year last season and again this year , Maxime Renaux seem to be severley underrated by some and it’s a shame. He is the real deal, a superb rider who is brilliant under pressure and added to all that, his team are based in Europe and won’t have logisticical headache of bringing a Star bike over from the US.
Dylan is also an amazing talent, fantasticly exciting to watch with superb speed who would also have been a strong pick, but someone elite had to miss out along with the injured Benistant who was himself a world title contender until injury. Maybe you could argue that Renaux and Dylan should both have made the team with one riding a 250 (both very capable of that) but then Tom Vialle would have had to miss out and he would have been the one not happy about it! It’s a close call and a tough call.
Last year Febvre, Vialle and Benistant all weren’t available but this year only Benistant is out and ironically the depth of their world clas riders is causing friction for team manager, Gautier Paulin, a rider who has ridden with Dylan and the other guys at the event himself and knows all the people involved (DV also coached him) – not an easy situation for the new team manager!
And you can bet Maxime Renaux is VERY motivated to prove people wrong. Get our interview with him at Arnhem here.
Article: Jonathan McCready
Image: InFront Moto Racing