THE CHAMPIONSHIP RUN-IN BEGINS WITH THE MXGP OF TÜRKIYE!
The 2025 FIM Motocross World Championships starts the final three-week run-in to its conclusion this weekend, as the Afyon Sports Centre plays host to the MXGP of Türkiye for round 18 of the series, with three World Championships all on a knife edge as the big journey east begins on the doorstep of Asia!
This year’s event will be the ninth time that MXGP has visited Turkish soil, with the first one being held at Hezarfen near the capital Istanbul in 2009, when Antonio Cairoli and Zach Osborne were victorious. Since 2018 the event has been staged at the Afyon Sports Centre in the centre of the country, missing the 2020 season but hosting two events in 2021. Jeffrey Herlings is the most successful rider here after taking the first four MXGP victories for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, with Tim Gajser taking the two following years for Honda HRC. Jorge Prado was triumphant last year in MXGP, with Lucas Coenen winning both Sunday races in the MX2 class.
Coenen was on fire at the last round in the Netherlands, but still unable to topple Herlings on home sand. His performance for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing brought him to within 31 points of Championship leader Romain Febvre, with the red plate holder for Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP suffering his worst weekend since the second round of the season. It’s still all to play for between the teenager and the veteran!
In MX2, reigning World Champion Kay de Wolf caught back up in the series for Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing with his first home GP win at Arnhem, while Championship leader Simon Längenfelder struggled to sixth overall for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing. This has brought the gap between them to just 15 points, and the German will hope that his hardpack form serves him well at Afyonkarahisar. The second Red Bull KTM Factory Racing rider, Andrea Adamo, will also be on his favoured surface and looking to close in his 23-point gap to De Wolf. This three-way scrap should go all the way to the final finish line in Australia, but the initiative will be crucially grabbed by one of them this weekend in Türkiye!
The penultimate round of the FIM Women’s Motocross World Championship also takes place this weekend, with defending World Champion Lotte van Drunen in the lead for De Baets Yamaha, with a 20-point advantage over veteran six-time Champ Kiara Fontanesi, and the Fonta MX Racing GASGAS rider won her first GP as a mother here in 2021! Daniela Guillen of the RFME Spain National Team is just a single point behind Kiara in third place, and she won here last year while Van Drunen clinched her title and Fontanesi took third. The fastest women on dirt bikes will be chasing hard for the title this weekend with just the final round in Australia to come for them!
The EMX250 European Championship reaches its conclusion this weekend, with Team VHR VRT Yamaha Official’s Latvian rider Janis Reisulis enjoying a 38-point lead over Hungarian Noel Zanocz on the JM Racing Honda. An eighth-place finish in race one will clinch the Championship for Reisulis, so it’s a case of holding the nerve to take the title!
The MXGP of Türkiye usually provides a hot and physical challenge for the MXGP elite, and should result in some intriguing racing across the classes.
With Lucas Coenen putting in an incredible performance at Arnhem, it tightened the gap in the Championship between the leading contenders, although he still needs to make up over ten points at each of the last three rounds to catch Romain Febvre. The Kawasaki man has won races at Afyon before, in 2022 and ’23, and finished fourth last year as part of his return from injury. Coenen’s double win in MX2 proves that he can get a feel for the circuit, although on hardpack it would appear that the pace between the top two is more evenly matched this year!
Glenn Coldenhoff has a 94-point margin to defend in his quest for the bronze medal, but was only seventh overall last year for Fantic Factory Racing MXGP. The Dutchman took second overall here in 2019 behind Herlings. Ruben Fernandez is fourth in the series for Honda HRC, and holds a slim 26-point advantage over Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP man Calvin Vlaanderen, who missed this race last year with a knee injury, while Fernandez only took tenth overall in 2024.
The overall winner at the last round, Jeffrey Herlings, won GPs here in 2018, ’19, and both in 2021, although he suffered a rough weekend last year. Having just passed Fantic Factory Racing MXGP’s Andrea Bonacorsi for sixth in the series, “The Bullet” has just won a British Championship round on similar hardpack terrain, and could be out to prove a point after his omission from the Dutch Motocross of Nations team selection!
Bonacorsi took eighth overall here in 2024, but won the EMX250 round in 2023 to clinch that title a round early! He lies 14 points ahead of Maxime Renaux for seventh in the Championship. The Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP rider has been in good form on hardpack recently, and took second in race on here last year, so he could be an outside contender for a podium at Afyon.
The riders who sit in ninth and tenth in the Championship right now both climbed the Turkish podium in 2024. Tim Gajser took the runner-up position for Honda HRC after winning the GPs here in 2022 & ’23. Jeremy Seewer, now riding for Aruba.it Ducati Factory MX Team, took the most recent race win of his career at Afyon last season on his way to third overall, and should enjoy a return to hardpack as he defends his top ten position in the Championship.
All the attention will be focussed on the title challengers however, as the series could go either way from here!
MXGP – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Romain Febvre (FRA, KAW), 835 Points; 2. Lucas Coenen (BEL, KTM), 804 Pts; 3. Glenn Coldenhoff (NED, FAN), 617 Pts; 4. Ruben Fernandez (ESP, HON), 523 Pts; 5. Calvin Vlaanderen (NED, YAM) 497 Pts; 6. Jeffrey Herlings (NED, KTM), 466 Pts; 7. Andrea Bonacorsi (ITA, FAN), 461 Pts; 8. Maxime Renaux (FRA, YAM), 447 Pts; 9. Tim Gajser (SLO, HON), 368 Pts; 10. Jeremy Seewer (SUI, DUC), 346Pts.
The MX2 World Championship has tightened up again after the MXGP of Netherlands, leaving Simon Längenfelder with a slim 15-point lead over reigning Champion Kay de Wolf. The pair have history at Afyonkarahisar after a brutal collision here in last year’s Qualifying Race! They each took home a fourth and a second in Sunday’s races to finish second and third overall, with Kay in front of Simon. The German has been able to score more points on hardpack this season and will be hoping to swing the momentum back in his direction one more time!
Andrea Adamo has also been strong on hardpack this season, but had a torrid weekend here last year to finish seventh overall, a place lower than he did in Türkiye during his 2023 title-winning campaign. So the Italian needs to fix whatever issues he has with the circuit to claw back the points he needs to keep his title challenge alive! In the same way, fellow Red Bull KTM Factory Racing flyer Sacha Coenen finished a lowly 15th overall here that year, and didn’t line up in 2024 due to injury. The young Belgian is 97 points behind Adamo and unlikely to get higher than fourth in the series this year.
Fifth in the Championship behind Coenen, Thibault Benistant has a fight on to keep that spot for Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2, as Camden McLellan is just 27 back from the Frenchman for the Monster Energy Triumph Racing squad. Meanwhile, the only rider in the MX2 line-up this weekend with a Turkish GP win, Liam Everts, is only ten points behind the South African, in seventh for Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing. Winner of last year’s Qualifying Race, the Belgian’s smooth style could pay dividends again on the slippery Turkish hardpack.
Over 150 points behind Everts is a mighty scrap for eighth in the series, with Honda HRC’s Valerio Lata now just two points ahead of the Monster Energy Triumph Racing star Guillem Farres, who is still just another ten ahead of the Kawasaki Racing Team MX2 rookie Mathis Valin after they scored the same total last time out! Valin won here in EMX250 last season, with Lata in third, but Farres has never seen this circuit before so has that learning curve to face!
Can Längenfelder take back the initiative in the series, or will De Wolf stop the pendulum swinging back towards the German as it has many times this season? For sure the MX2 class could go right down to the wire this weekend!
MX2 – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Simon Längenfelder (GER, KTM), 783 Points; 2. Kay de Wolf (NED, HUS), 768 Pts; 3. Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), 745 Pts; 4. Sacha Coenen (BEL, KTM), 648 Pts; 5. Thibault Benistant (FRA, YAM), 575 Pts; 6. Camden McLellan (RSA, TRI), 548 Pts; 7. Liam Everts (BEL, HUS), 538 Pts; 8. Valerio Lata (ITA, HON), 386 Pts; 9. Guillem Farres (ESP, TRI), 384 Pts; 10. Mathis Valin (FRA, KAW), 374 Pts.
Bild/Text: Infront