Justin Barcia on San Diego | The Press Conference 2

Quietly, Justin Barcia has had a good start to the 2023 Monster Energy Supercross season. '51' was destined for a top-five result at Anaheim 1, before an untimely crash, and then placed his MC 450F onto the premier-class podium on Saturday night. Of course, no one wants to talk about his results. Barcia was involved in a heat race altercation with Jason Anderson – it was Anderson who put Barcia down – and social media burst into life shortly after that.

Unsurprisingly, many of the questions that Barcia fielded in the post-race press conference were based on that incident. There was some talk of his new MC 450F though and how he has adapted to that, so it is not all doom and gloom! Barcia is currently sixth in the 450SX championship standings and just six points down on Chase Sexton in third. The excerpts from his involvement in the post-race press conference can be found below, but the media event is available in video form elsewhere on Vital MX too.

Press Conference: Take us through the heat race. We have seen some comments from Jason Anderson about some contact together, so just take us through that and just the heat race.

Justin Barcia: I don't think I want to answer this one... Yeah, it was good racing. It was one of those corners where, if you left it open, it was going to happen and unfortunately me and Chase [Sexton) came together there in the main event too. It was one of those things. Yeah... Is what it is, move on from it, racing hard and passes were good. It's all good, not holding any grudges to it.

You are on the new generation GasGas. How important is it to get a result like this early on and just give us an update on your progress with that bike. Really good to get that podium a second time out.

Oh, absolutely. For me, the new bike has been great. It is very easy to make small changes and adapt to the tracks. I did a big few weeks in California testing on it, then went to Florida for a month and just rode the bike. I got really comfortable with it then came to California, rode it again and was right on pace at the test track. That was good. Anaheim was just a weird one. It was just a tricky track, kind of an awful day a little bit and just weird. I got the holeshot in the main event and went straight into the lead, then struggled a little bit and obviously a couple of mistakes took me out of that. It was a bummer to miss round two with the weather, but it's good to come back to San Diego – here in the new Snapdragon Stadium – and have a good result. There was a lot of pressure tonight, like just the battle in the race was so intense, and it was good to come through that on the new bikes and also, it's a contract year for me. I definitely want to have a good season.

You had pressure from Kenny [Roczen], like every lap that whole race. Can you talk about how you stayed calm and kept him behind you?

I didn't feel calm [laughs] – it was an intense race. It was a really good race, but I felt like I didn't breathe the whole race. I rode well, but not how I would obviously like to ride. I feel like, you know, Coop [Webb] and Eli [Tomac] broke away and I wasn't obviously able to close that gap. Then me and Kenny had a pretty good battle. He passed me, but then I struck back really quick and got around him. I think that they might have been jumping through the whoops behind me and I skimmed them the whole race... That was super gnarly. I probably should've adapted to that a little better. All in all, it was an intense race. The track was tricky and, yeah, we got into lappers pretty quickly. You really had to be smart and precise and hit your marks. Kenny raced me good, we talked after the race and he was stoked on it. It's fun when you have a really good race like that for the podium, the last podium position.

Did you talk to Jason after that heat race incident? Do you have a response to the tweet heard around the world other than sitting on the box tonight?

What? Was something said? I don't know. 

Do you have Twitter?

Yeah, yeah.

You haven't been on it yet?

No. I don't know what's going on [laughs]. I don't know what the story is. Honestly, it's really not much fun. After the race, he kind of like stopped and waved me over. I thought he was going to say, "That was a good race and like, you know, sorry you went down." No, that was the opposite of what happened. I was like, "Oh, okay, that's how it is going to be?" Then he's in the tunnel fighting with my mechanic and stuff. I'm just not going to get into that. Yeah, all good. I'm not sweating it.

They actually put the tweet up on the air tonight. He said you were complaining and that you should not complain, and he called you a bitch in the tweet.

Ah, yeah [laughs]. I mean, I'm not surprised, I didn't complain at all. He called me over and started, like, calling me all kinds of profanity and I was just like, "All right." The AMA came over to our truck and asked what happened. I said, "He called me over and cussed me out." It was so random and I did not say anything, so I don't know.  It's just odd but no, I'm not going to get into a Twitter fight. It's just silly. Honestly, it's just silly. I didn't have a problem with the pass. Me and Chase, the same pass happened with us and I obviously didn't want that to happen. Like I said, no big deal and no hard feelings. If he wants to curse at me, that's fine. I can handle it, I have pretty thick skin. Move on from it and let's go racing. It's a long season. I don't feel like I need to pay him back or anything. I race hard, so let's go.

You would have raced clean if you caught him in the main? You had no grudge. You thought the pass and everything was good?

I was not going to do anything stupid. I was trying to, you know, make up for that first round that wasn't so good. I'm just trying to make up points. I want to have a good race with all these guys and I told Olly [Stone], "If you see Chase then tell him I want to talk to him like a man." You know, because Chase and I were good friends. Well, I feel like that anyway. It was a bummer that we came together. With Anderson, no, I wasn't going to put any retaliation after that solid pass. It was a bummer that I went down, obviously, I was not happy but I wasn't going to go up to him and fight or do anything stupid.