What Really Happened in Tampa?
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Thirty two seconds. Through the entirety of the Tampa Supercross main event, Malcolm Stewart gained 32 seconds on Chase Sexton in the whoops. That’s 60% of a lap!
Sexton may have had a slight advantage around the rest of the track (he led 18 laps, after all). Sexton even got a holeshot! But losing over a second per lap in 100 feet is huge. Simply put, Stewart was unstoppable in the whoops.
No One Was Close to Stewart’s Whoop Speed
Through 23 laps, Stewart set the fastest time in the whoops 17 times! Even conventionally fast whoop riders like Jason Anderson and Ken Roczen were losing at least half a second per lap to Stewart in the section. Nearly every rider lost a half a lap or more to Stewart.
Combined with a difficult sand section, this is why we saw Stewart lap through 9th place, the highest this season.
Total Time Lost to Malcolm Stewart in Whoops
But wait. If Stewart was so fast in the whoops, then why did it take until Lap 18 for him to catch Sexton? Once again, the start played a critical role. Sexton got his first holeshot of the season and, on the opening lap, was able to gain 6.4 seconds on Stewart.
Determined as ever, Stewart erased Sexton’s lead bit by bit nearly every lap. Stewart outpaced Sexton on 16 of 22 timed laps.
Stewart vs. Sexton: Tampa SX, Lap by Lap
Shockingly, Sexton was faster around the rest of the track than Stewart by a comfortably margin, 14.5 seconds throughout the entire race. Stewart just flat out beat Sexton in the whoops. There was nothing Sexton could have done outside of hitting them faster.
Sexton vs. Stewart: Total Time Advantage
Anstie Rivaled Stewart’s Whoop Speed
In the 250s, Max Anstie rivaled Stewart’s whoop speed. It also won him the race. Daxton Bennick was faster than Anstie around the rest of the track, but once again, the whoops flipped the script. Anstie gained over 14 seconds on Bennick in the whoops alone.
And that’s not all. Anstie was just 0.2 seconds slower than Stewart in the whoops. That would rank him as the second-fastest rider in the whoops if he had raced in the 450 class on his 250!
Anstie vs. Bennick: Total Time Advantage
The difference-maker was how each rider entered the section. Both Stewart and Anstie opted to go outside in the corner beforehand, allowing them to double-triple the 5-pack entering the whoops. Most other riders took the inside, rolled into the 5-pack, and went double-double. The difference in entrance speed from the triple was obvious. Stewart and Anstie perfected this line, and in the end, it won them the race.
What About the Sand?
While it was clear from the broadcast just how much of an advantage Stewart had in the whoops, most of us were still convinced the race would come down to the sand. It did play a role, but the races were not won or lost there. Both Webb and Bennick had an advantage over Stewart and Anstie, respectively, in the sand, but now we’re talking tenths of a second per lap, not full seconds like in the whoops.
Total Time Lost to Malcolm Stewart in the Sand Rhythm
What’s unique about the sand, though, is that there was a clear divide between riders who could execute it well and those who struggled. Furthermore, mistakes in the sand were costlier. Without getting too nerdy, total lap time correlated more strongly with time spent in the sand than with time spent in the whoops. This suggests that when a rider made a mistake in the sand it impacted their lap time more than a mistake in the whoops (crashing included).
Outside of the incident involving Roczen, Hand, and Lane, very few 450 riders made major mistakes through the section consistently. However, the sand did seem to separate the 250 riders more. Given the horsepower advantage of the 450 engine, it may have been a little bit of throttle therapy and holding on.