‘99’ racked-up the stats across the shallow Italian sand at Mantova and has now taken a chequered flag in eight from the last twelve motos, at least one moto win in six of the last seven Grands Prix and has only been beaten once in the last three rounds (when he crashed while leading in the Czech Republic). Anstie’s title-winning form means that he is now third in the FIM MX2 Motocross World Championship and 38 points from the red plate.

On Saturday Max engaged in a close scrap with Valentin Guillod and emerged victorious from the battle to claim his fourth Pole Position on the bounce for the motos on Sunday.

In the first outing he had to catch and pass championship pace-setter Pauls Jonass after an early race crash but once into the lead was then unchallenged to the finish line. He made easier work of the second moto by getting in front on the first lap and running away to another success and confirming the team’s best spell of glory and results this century.

With 150 points remaining to be bagged this season then Anstie is still in with a fair chance of making a late rally for the MX2 crown. Jonass and Tim Gajser also finished on the podium in Italy and ‘99’ now has to look at outgunning his two principal rivals in Holland, Mexico and the USA.

Monster Energy DRT Kawasaki move north this week and will enter the gates of one of the most iconic road racing facilities in the world – Assen – as the facility prepares to make its debut as a host of the FIM MXGP series for what will be round sixteen of eighteen next weekend.

Max Anstie:

“We had a nice couple of weeks and in a way it almost first like the first GP again because people were able to reset and recover – or at least it was like that for me because I had done twelve weekends of racing in a row up to and including Lommel. So I didn’t really know what to expect this weekend and I had only ridden here once a long time ago. The track was mega and I’ve never seen a GP track with so many jumps, rhythm sections and step-on and step-offs; it made it all quite good fun. I was annoyed at myself for dropping it in the first moto so I did not want to make another mistake in the second. I got out front and put my laps down and had to be careful of not burning out my clutch. I felt smooth and really happy. It was another good day and hopefully we can keep on having some great races.”

Steve Dixon, Team Principal:

“Another fantastic weekend for the team and Max really is riding on a different level to everybody at the moment. We are third in the championship and who knows what can happen? The only thing we can do is to keep on pushing and working the best we can. It has been our best season since the days of running Paul Malin and I’m extremely thankful to all our sponsors and Kawasaki.”