The Belgian, still on the road to recovery from his pre-season injuries, made a significant step forward with this result and returns to Europe full of confidence for a rapid return to the podium in the upcoming rounds of the series. After a solid qualification at the tortuous track 1800 metres above sea level he quickly established himself in fifth position in the opening moto and rode a solid race to finish in that position, just half a minute behind the winner. Clement also maintained fifth place throughout the second race to secure fifth place overall on the day and make giant strides towards a top ten series ranking despite his difficult start to the campaign.
 
Tommy Searle of Monster Energy DRT Kawasaki also showed good pace all weekend and the English rider was also delighted with his much-improved starts. Unfortunately, after reaching turn one in second place in the first GP moto, mistakes dropped him to twelfth before he stormed back impressively to eighth, only to crash two laps from the finish for an eventual twelfth place. Avoiding errors in race two he maintained sixth place throughout to secure eighth overall in the GP and maintain his tenth place in the series standings.
 
Clement Desalle: “I had a decent race day here in Mexico; with two top five finishes I got fifth overall and that’s not so bad as I’m still far from my best level and we can see that the level of the MXGP is higher than in the past. I did my best again this weekend and it’s nice to see that I can improve my results each weekend, even if I couldn’t ride the bike this week as we did not return to Europe. I’m pretty happy with the result; as I said last week I want to fight for podium results as soon as possible and we’re on the way. I missed riding my bike in the week; for sure when I’m back home I will be able to train normally to prepare for the next GPs as we have three races in a row. I’m also happy for the team; they worked hard and this weekend we got a decent result and of course we can soon expect even better.”
 
Tommy Searle: “It has been a better weekend, I think it could have been even better. In the first race I made a good start but went too wide in the first few corners and dropped from fourth to twelfth. In the middle of the race I started to come back and I was eighth when I crashed with two laps to go. I finished twelfth and was disappointed with my couple of mistakes, then the second race was better with a sixth position, a solid result. I show good speed every week, even if the results haven’t been there, and we’ll go back home on a positive note with this top six. Yesterday I also had some good moments in qualification; I got a good start and ran in second for a long time but then we had a small problem with the seat. There’s a lot of positive from this weekend. We go away from the overseas events in one piece and now we go back in Europe; the goal will be to keep pushing and try to get closer to the front.”