Prado - Post High Point

And how many times did he win qualifying & races with the patented holeshot and being able to quickly build a gap…. 

Fraudo.

Prado is doing about as well as I expected him to do racing here. 

Yes that second moto was a disappointment. He needed to have more dawg to stay in front of Deegs like he did in the first moto. He needs more compete in that situation, and in general. Deegs out dawged him in moto 2. 

to be honest , I think Prado got overhyped when he moved over to AMA ..yeah he was a double champ , but like Febvre he won his titles with the big dogs out ... Gajser and Herlings are the big dogs , when one of them stays healthy for a season they took the title .. Prado was top 5 ... on certain tracks he did really good , on others he easily avg .. he strongest point was his start .. not his finish ... so for him to go top 5 in this field with Lawrence Brothers and Deegan up there , isn't that bad at all 

It's impossible to see on TV, but from trackside it's easy to spot; Prado yo-yos his pace a lot and looks over his shoulder a lot. Not the blatant 180° rubber neck over the big jumps, but the 45° glance entering and leaving switchback corners. Not sure if it shows up in lap times or not.  

Just an observation, don't know the guy well enough to hypothesize what it means. 

I guess he's been underwhelming. There's no shame in getting beat by the Lawrence's. Depending on the day, or track, and either one can be TFMOTP. But he should have more fight and clear Deegan IMO. 

Didn't her only pass up to 13th?  

Idk man. In 24’ they were there and he won more than gajser and herlings combined and majority of the fast qualifiers etc. He was the guy. I think it was too much change at once, plus an injury, then a little egoflation expecting to be good now and not build on a new bike/team and wasted a year. 

I think his riding style/bike package needs adapting for the faster tracks. His lugging is too extreme. You can see when he runs insides he gets yanked. When his momentum gets broke he loses 3 or 4 seconds over the lap. That’s just too much with the hunter bros being so dialed 

If Marchbanks could pull starts like Prado, I doubt Prado would catch him in any race. Marchbanks runs better lap times always late in the race but even coming through the pack when he's got clear track. Garrett is having his best outdoor season so far on the bike Prado couldn't ride. 

Either way, Jorge is the 4th to 6th fastest right now and he's not even as good as that rookie leading him in points and passing him on the track

Well there is a reason. The Coenens don't spend most of their year riding supercross and setting their bike up for it.

Run them through a full SX season and it'll be the same result.

Prado’s problem with the Kawasaki last year is the same as Chase’s problem this year.  He can’t beat the Lawrence brothers on it.  If Chase leaves, he’ll be in the same boat as Prado next year.  Still getting beat by the Lawrences, but without the 7 figure paycheck.

So what happened indoors? Hunter didn't win until round 7. Chase was still only the 5-6th best guy out there. Jett wasn't even there

when his mechanic dropped the "BREAK HIM" message on the pitboard, only to have deegan break prado, that was gold.

George is about where we thought he would be 

He’s not doing bad, he’s just up against 2 or 3 freaks right now. For moto his expectations are very high, so you might say he underperformed..but he overperformed  expectations in supercross no doubt 

I mean you could see the motivation for this championship just sucked right out of him after that mechanical, sad thing is he almost seemed relieved in a way. I think he has the talent to beat Jett any given week, just not the mindset. 

Give him a touch more time he will be fine. 

Chase won two races. That’s 1 more than the defending champ who was on the same bike he raced in 2025.  Supercross is hard. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I'm sure the DNF contributes to the shift in perspective. It's realistic when you have the consistency of the Lawrences. 

The post race interview with Lewis is insightful. I don't get all the Prado bashing. 

That's a solid point about him lugging the bike. Many ppl have said he rides a taller gear than most, and his comments of MXGP tracks being much more one lined, and being used to just using the insides is probably a habit he has to change a bit. 

The tracks in the US are different, he just needs to adapt to that. If we consider this his first year of playing near the front of the field, he's doing good. Plus, I think the Hunter bros pace atm, is faster than what he experienced in MXGP, during his winning years.

George is a quitter it's been well documented 

If only he would have given an effort to Kawi like he did when Deegs and AP were putting it to him who knows where he’d of finished. He turned up his effort level tremendously for those two. 

Prado is a solid 4-5 guy with podium potential if someone has a bad day. The problem is his ego is a winner. So when he isn’t in contention for the lead he falls apart. I know that Supercross isn’t his area of expertise but we saw it all year long there. If he was hunt for the lead he was going fast. As soon as someone passes him that he doesn’t think should be passing him…he drops anchor.

I fully expect him to ride as well as he has this year until midway through the outdoor season then he will start mailing it again. I don’t think we get “not trying to qualify” level of give up but instead just cruising for 10-12. 

I agree with this - he’s realistically a 4th - 5th place guy for the most part. You could make a case that he’s more a 3rd place guy but Deegan is improving so unless Prado shows us something I doubt that many people will be disagreeing that the Lawrences and Deegan are the top 3 and Prado slots in behind them. 

What you say about his ego is probably right too. He may not be able to accept the reality that there are guys who have him covered even on his best day and that could mess with him mentally, which could set him back into the next tier (top 10 with the occasional top 5). I hope that’s not what happens. I’d rather be watching him challenge for podiums. It’s a lot of fun to see him racing with Deegan, with their contrasting styles. 

I’ve followed GPs, for a few years and Jorge is incredibly talented but I’ve also watched him for 2 years here and I’ve never seen his ceiling high enough to beat Hunter or Jett.  Do you have videos of standout rides you can share in the thread here that show that speed from him? Genuinely would like to see 

And the reverse is true.

I'd say this one here was probably one of the best rides I've seen from him. I do think his ceiling is good enough to win races vs the current Lawrences but even the best version of Prado doesn't beat them in a championship I think. Talent and skill wise he should be up there with Deegan and battle for third at least every weekend though.

The thing with Prado is.. I think he is very mentally driven and everything has to be aligned for him. When he knows he isn't battling for wins it seems like he sometimes just rides around, like he has zero confidence that weekend compared to like Haiden for example who charges forward no matter what. He did this in his early MXGP 450 years and in SX aswell.

In his 2018/2019 Mx2 he was so good (almost perfect season in 2019) that everyone expected him to immediately battle for the title when he moved up and he wasn't bad in his rookie year. But pretty much like what we have seen in SX for example. When he was on he had winning speed and could win on any day but on the other weekend he could ride around in 10-15th and nobody knew what was going on. Than he got Covid, had to retire from the season and he really wasn't the same for over a year.

2021 and 2022 were pretty much the same tho. Holeshots, winning speed on some weekends, way outside the top 5th a week later.

In 2023 and 2024 everything clicked. A holeshot was pretty much a moto win from him and he was gone after the first 2-3 turns. 2024 it also didn't matter where he started, he had so much more speed than anyone that he just blew by people most races. Specially 2024 is why everyone had high hopes for Prado actually being a challenge for Jett, he basically looked like Lucas does now.

I sometimes ask myself if he regrets his decision to move to the US (obviously he regrets signing with Kawasaki, no doubt about that), specially now with Lucas also coming over. In 2024 he had all the confidence in the world and definitely thought (and said) he could beat Jett. Now we basically have two Jetts out there with Hunter getting even better. and now Lucas and Deegan aswell? I wouldn't be surprised if we see more SX than MX wins from Prado in the future though.