It was a monumental day for Team Honda HRC as they unveiled the 2025 CRF450R in Unadilla over the weekend.
The bike’s debut was news in itself, but it was Hunter Lawrence who took home the first win in the 450 class and made the weekend truly unforgettable. Lawrence was able to hold off a stubborn Chase Sexton in the final laps of the race to finish things off.
“I’ve been very open about how good I think the bike is,” Lawrence said in the post-race press conference. “Of course there’s a little bit of pressure there, like, ‘Hey, now that you’re saying how great this bike is, you better do well,’ and (if) you go out there and fail, you’d look like a complete idiot, you know?”
So what’s the secret sauce behind the 2025 CRF450R that has Hunter so excited? Our test rider Ashton Bloxom had the chance to test the bike at the Ironman bike’s launch last month and was impressed with the production version.
“The handling is obviously a lot better,” said Lawrence. “It’s great to have a bike that you can work with and that helps you in certain places on the track. As far as the debut of a new bike goes, we’re really happy with it. A little disappointed with how the second race went, but it’s next weekend and it could have been a lot worse.”
Although he was disappointed in his second race, Lawrence finished second in the race and his 1st and 2nd places on the day earned him second place overall. It was a step in the right direction and it seems like the break in the schedule did him a lot of good. Lawrence needed to recover from his crash at RedBud, which took a lot of wind out of his sails.
“The second race was tough, you know,” Lawrence said. “The lines are so narrow and it’s really difficult to see ahead or see through a rider. You know, there’s a terminology we use to see what’s coming, because a lot of the bumps were super fast but extremely sharp. All in all, not a terrible day.”
With a race for the 2025 model, the future looks bright. Hunter Lawrence is perhaps the best salesman in the box. He really believes in the bike. We saw first hand at the launch how much this bike has meant to all the Honda engineers and team members. As we have seen with Honda over the last few years, everything is a team effort and this new bike definitely is.
“We’re all really proud of the bike that we got out of the box,” said Lawrence. “Everyone has had a hand in it. It’s one of the best 450s, which maybe we haven’t been able to say in previous years. I’m just proud. I can tell my buddies back home: This is the bike you need.”
Photo credit: MX Sports Pro Racing, Inc.
