Lawrence Bros hypothetical

No split. They are a family team.

Honda would be foolish to not re-sign Hunter. 

I was thinking about this earlier actually, I think Hunter will split off not from Honda but to MXGP. 

Or maybe Jett does MXGP? They’re certainly effective here but even Cal Naughton Jr had to start winning..

Seeing Hunter after the race you could tell he was not pleased. I could see him wanting to be on a different team at some point. He’s good enough now to be the top rider on a factory team and playing second fiddle to his brother is probably getting old. Things are good where he is, but a desire for a change would not surprise me either. 

Do you think he’d get paid more on a different team?  I mean his chances of beating Jett aren’t going to change and I’d even argue they’re better if he stays at Honda.

Where would he go? All the other teams are full. Isn't he signed through 26 anyways?

The glue can only stay together for so long. Hunter will either rise to be better than Jett at Honda, or leave to be the guy somewhere else. Jett should have let him take the million this year. 

their father literally said on pulp , if the situation & money was right , they would let hunter do his own thing , will it happen 🤔 prolly not , but everything is on the table with a calculated plan in mind 

I don't know if he's taking a big pay cut to be the number two rider on Honda but to win a championship he's going to have to capitalize on some misfortune for Jett, his chances of having a better bike on any other team or slim Best just to stay with his brother and ride the best bike the best way he can.

I would be shocked if those 2 split. Seems they’re a package deal. Honda would be crazy to let Hunter go and mess with the best 1  2 punch this sport has ever seen. They are cleaning up and now Joe has a title. Honda is clearly in the drivers seat and I expect them to stay there as long as they can. 

Nobody is beating Jett. Hunter is only as good as he is because of Jett. That’s not to take away from hunter, but if he wasn’t riding with Jett daily he wouldn’t be as good as he is, and it doesn’t matter what team he goes on he will never be as good as Jett. 

Is nobody else watching this guy lol? Let’s just be real, Jett is the best guy on a dirtbike that we have ever seen in the US. I don’t watch mxgp so idk about over there, but he is better than all the greats we’ve had and nobody is going to touch him. 

If Hunter can not stand to be 2nd to Jett, his best bet I think is MXGP. I think him going to another team here hurts them both. Now they ride together on the same bike and help each other with bike set up ect. If they split to different teams that all goes away.

Did I miss something with Kawasaki second spot alongside Sexton for 2026 ?

My personal opinion..

The brothers as a pair are extremely marketable. I’m sure Honda doesn’t like cutting checks having the top two guys on the same team, but it makes their bikes look damn appealing. 

Only scenario I see Hunter leaving is if he knows he only has a year or two left in the tank and another team is offering him substantially more money than Honda. 

Why would you leave? I get its a hypothetical but yeah

You're gonna leave the best bike, best environment, for an extra million or 2? That you probably would make up in branding deal with your brother as a team?

I could get on board with this hypothetical

Watched that scene on YouTube last night where Cal asked if Ricky could slingshot him into the lead for once. 

Nothing wrong with silver!

Hunter knows Jett will always get him no matter what color he's on. I'd say stick to being a family. Don't let a sport tear you apart. Family is more important than a sport. 

Yer his not stoked he didn’t win but a new team won’t help that. He would be the number 1 rider at any other team however he would still be the number 2 rider 90% of the time on the day.

Why would he change teams when he can train with the best, ride the same equipment as the best, have the best team mate and keep his family together?

Look at how much he stepped up since joining Jett on the 450s. There is no way he would throw all of that away to try a new bike thinking the bike was the issue. 

His unfortunately just battling a once in a decade freak and  atm his just missing some pieces of the puzzle to bring the gap closer. A strong offseason and more work together and next year they will both be even stronger. 

Crazy times when you think of how young they both are

Exactly. And Hunter knows better than anyone else that no one is beating Jett. I'm on the side that Hunter actually goes backwards a little if he went to another team. Now maybe Hunter wants to be on another team because being on the same team as your brother and getting beat by him is too much for him. Another team would be a move for his sanity. 

The money another team offers him, he will make up for in podium bonus on honda. I think hunter going to another team would actually hurt both of them, but hunter much more. Hunter being on Honda and being able to ride the best in the sports bike at any given time to see if he lost his way in testing gives him a few more podiums in the year. 

You might want to ease up on that last part until he surpasses the records set by the King and the Goat.

Not sure where else to post this so I'll dump it in here.

Can't say I'm a fan at all of Jett feeling guilty for beating his brother.  I get that he loves his brother and clearly they share a huge bond, but when you just win the last race in the series, the look on Jett's face was like the world was ending.

Was a really weird vibe.  He shouldn't feel guilty for being the fastest rider and it's not like Hunter and the entire family are raking in the money right now.

Thoughts?

I dont know culmination of constantly yanking the rug out from under him all year long? And its SMX, i.e. just a big pay day and not some real World Championship. I doubt he felt any disappointment over winning the mx title over him. Or if this was the sx title. He should stop holding back and managing races and yard these dudes by 30sec so Hunter stops thinking he has a chance 😂 

Okay I’ll go with the hypothetical, because I don’t think it’ll happen in the foreseeable future, but if Hunter leaving coincided with Honda having a new bike, we could see a levelling of the playing field.

It’s clear Hunter does the heavy lifting with testing over at HRC and that’s likely because he’s better at setting up the bike up than Jett. We all saw early in SX and MX that if the bike is off, Jett’s not quite so alien. 
So if Hunter went somewhere else on a bike he gelled with, and Jett had a new bike to sort, I think we’d see a very interesting season.

I think its because of a couple things. The points gap was so close that it was whoever beat the other, essentially. And that the exact same thing happened last year. If it wasn't such a tight points race, I feel it would be a different story. Especially when Jett could have easily just stayed 3rd in that second moto and given it to Hunter, but knowing that its not how you would want to win a title.

Weird to say it, but a tough spot for Jett. 

I dont think he could set the bike up as well without all the team he has around him atm including Dazzy and Jett. Those boys bikes are set up so well its almost criminal 

Random Hunter stats:

- Finished outside the top 5 overall just once all year in races he entered SX/MX/SMX. Just happened to be the very first race: A1 - 11th

- Still has never finished outside top 5 overall in 450MX and SMX - 2 seasons / 28 events - ironically, he finished 2nd in all 4 "seasons"

- Ironically also, his 450 SMX overalls are the exact same as last year - 4, 1, 2. 

If's, but's and maybe's: Without Jett, Hunter is a 2 x time 450 SMX Champ and 1 x time 450 MX Champ. 

Or maybe Jett is only as good as he is due to training with Hunter ???

 I'd say the Lawrence's, have that thing called 'Collective Bargaining', as a heck of a contractual tool. 

Honda have quite the thing going (at this time) with the Lawrence Collective, and, with Joe, as well.

That they are all Foreigners, seems to not be going against them, at the moment, but, you never know how that will 'age'.