Hunter Lawrence
No longer ‘nearly’ champion
For much of the past few seasons, Hunter Lawrence has been introduced in relation to somebody else: Jett’s older brother, the steady one but lacking the otherworldly talent of a younger brother that had redefined modern motocross and supercross.
Before Jett became one of the most successful young racers the sport has seen, Hunter’s results first opened the door to Europe. It was Hunter’s opportunity that helped prompt the Lawrence family to leave Queensland, and Hunter who first laid out the route from Australia to Europe and then America.
Eleven years after telling MCNews that was precisely where he wanted his career to go, the 27-year-old from Landsborough is finally an AMA Pro Motocross 450 Champion.
A finale that had to be survived
Hunter carried a one-point advantage over Jett into the Ironman National, leaving the equation brutally simple: finish ahead of his younger brother and the title was his.
Nothing about the afternoon proved simple.
Hunter made the start he needed in the opening moto, only to be caught in Haiden Deegan’s first-lap crash and sent tumbling down the order. Jett aggravated the ankle and foot injury that had already complicated his title defence and was also unable to ride at his normal level.
Hunter recovered to eighth. Jett could manage only 11th. The elder brother’s championship advantage had grown to four points, which meant Hunter could afford to finish immediately behind Jett in the final moto.
That was ultimately how it played out. Jorge Prado completed a dominant 1-1 afternoon, while Jett fought through to third and Hunter followed him home in fourth. Hunter’s 8-4 scorecard put him fourth overall, with Jett’s 11-3 leaving him sixth, but the only numbers that mattered were 474 and 472.
Two points separated the brothers after 22 motos.
Hunter Lawrence
“We’re living the American dream.”
The emotion was not simply about what happened at Ironman. It came from everything required to reach it.
The brother who opened the door
When MCNews interviewed Hunter in April 2015, he was 15 and already a multiple Australian junior champion. He had represented Australia at the Junior World Motocross Championship four times and was preparing to do so again.
Even then, his intended path was remarkably clear. Win at home, move into Europe, prove himself in EMX250 and MX2, then earn the chance to race in America.
Hunter Lawrence – 2015
“I’m willing to work every day until I’m there.”
Hunter finished third in the 125cc class at the 2015 Junior Worlds in Spain, and the performance attracted the attention that would change the direction of the entire family. A deal with Monster Energy CLS Kawasaki provided the platform for Hunter to contest the 2016 EMX250 Championship, while support was also found for Jett and the Lawrences relocated to Europe together.
Hunter was not a passenger on his younger brother’s journey. He was the family pathfinder.
Europe supplied speed, scars and credibility
Hunter quickly showed that the move was justified. He swept both EMX250 races at Teutschenthal in Germany in 2016, a weekend MCNews reported as a decisive European breakthrough, and climbed to second in the championship before a knee injury curtailed his campaign.
Suzuki and Stefan Everts then brought him into the MX2 World Championship for 2017. His rookie season contained the crashes and injuries that would become an unwelcome thread through the early part of his career, but it ended with a first MX2 moto victory in France and ninth in the championship.
Two weeks later, Hunter produced one of his defining early performances at Matterley Basin. He won the MX2 classification at the 2017 Motocross of Nations, beating established American stars in the process, and received the Ricky Carmichael Award as the event’s outstanding young rider.
The performance helped turn a long-held ambition into a firm plan. Hunter signed a three-year agreement with Geico Honda that would take him to the United States in 2019, after one more MX2 season with the Honda 114 Motorsports squad. Despite missing races in 2018, he finished third in the MX2 World Championship.
America did not hand him anything
The move to the United States delivered flashes of what Hunter could become, but little immediate reward. He won 250MX motos at High Point and Spring Creek during his 2019 rookie campaign, while injuries repeatedly interrupted the momentum he was trying to build.
His breakthrough 250SX victory finally arrived at Arlington in 2021. Hunter admitted afterwards that, only a year earlier, he had been at rock bottom and had considered walking away from racing. That context made his first AMA win about far more than a trophy.
Later that year he swept both Southwick motos to take his first AMA Pro Motocross overall victory and went on to finish third in the 250MX standings.
By 2023, the promise had finally become sustained authority. Hunter clinched the 250SX East Region Championship in Nashville, then added the AMA Pro Motocross 250 Championship later that summer.
There was no question he had earned the step to the CRF450RWE for 2024. The question was whether he could escape a pattern of being almost, but not quite, champion.
When runner-up became a habit
Hunter finished second to Chase Sexton in the 2024 AMA Pro Motocross Championship during his rookie 450 season. He then ended the 2024 SuperMotocross finale level on points with Jett, only for his brother to take the crown on the round-win tiebreaker.
A shoulder injury wrecked Hunter’s 2025 Supercross campaign, but he returned to finish runner-up to Jett in Pro Motocross. Along the way, he claimed his first 450MX overall victory at Ironman Raceway – the same venue at which he would return one year later to secure the title.
The near-misses continued into 2026. Hunter won five 450SX Main Events, beginning with his maiden premier-class Supercross victory at Arlington, but a fall while fighting Ken Roczen in the Salt Lake City finale left him second in the championship by only three points.
Second in 2024 Pro Motocross. Second in the 2024 SMX Championship. Second in 2025 Pro Motocross. Second in the 2026 Supercross Championship.
Ironman carried the weight of all four.
A title that refused the straight path
Hunter opened the 2026 outdoor season with a perfect qualifying-and-moto sweep at Fox Raceway. He went on to win six of the 11 rounds and 12 of the 22 motos.
Jett won eight of the remaining ten motos, with the brothers combining for 20 victories and trading the championship lead a record six times. The only interruption came at Ironman, where Prado swept both motos.
The defining swing came at Unadilla. Hunter arrived with a 12-point lead, won the opening moto, then crashed heavily on the circuit’s steep Screw-U climb while running near the front of Moto Two. The impact damaged the Honda and left Hunter classified 39th, transforming his championship advantage into a ten-point deficit.
One week later, on a treacherously slippery Budds Creek circuit, Hunter responded with a 1-1 sweep. He turned that ten-point deficit into a one-point lead and carried the red plate to Ironman.
That sequence says more about his championship than the subdued fourth place that ultimately secured it. Hunter did not reach the summit through one untouchable season. He reached it by repeatedly absorbing the worst days his sport could produce and returning the following weekend.
Two brothers, one complicated finish line
The final contest contained none of the animosity that usually drives a title rivalry. Hunter’s greatest opponent was also the person who had shared the sacrifice, the move across the world and nearly every important chapter of his life.
Jett’s painful finale made Hunter’s job easier on the points sheet but harder emotionally. Hunter still had to pass his injured brother in Moto One, then shadow him to the flag in Moto Two. Jett, in turn, was among the first to acknowledge that Hunter had been the benchmark across the season.
The result delivered Honda HRC Progressive a second consecutive 1-2 finish in the 450MX standings and Honda its 16th premier-class AMA Pro Motocross riders’ title. Honda also secured the 2026 Manufacturers Championship.
Those are the official milestones. The human one is larger.
In 2015, a 15-year-old Hunter Lawrence told MCNews that Europe was where he needed to be, America was the dream beyond it, and he was prepared.
