THE FINAL SHOWDOWN FOR THE TITLE IS ON AT THE MXGP OF CASTILLA LA MANCHA
It’s time for the Champions to be crowned in both classes of the 2024 MXGP Motocross World Championships, as the Spanish venue of Cozar hosts the 20th and final round of the series, the MXGP of Castilla La Mancha!
Named after the landlocked autonomous community that it is set in, the circuit is part of the Circuito Motor Ranch, to be found around 240km south of the capital Madrid and 130km west of the city of Albacete. The venue will be the 19th circuit in Spain to ever host a Motocross Grand Prix, and the second in the Castilla La Mancha region after Talavera de la Reina. This is our third visit to Spain this season, and home hero Jorge Prado has taken victory in both previous rounds for Red Bull GASGAS Factory Racing in MXGP. Kay de Wolf took the victory in MX2 at intu-Xanadu Arroyomolinos, but his Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racingteammate Lucas Coenen won overall at Lugo for the MXGP of Galicia in May.
The MXGP world title will be decided between reigning World Champion Prado and Team HRC’s Tim Gajser, who lost the points lead in China and now sits just seven points behind his rival! Jeffrey Herlings has a slim mathematical chance for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, but a 48-point gap to Prado makes his chance a very remote one.
The year-long tussle for the MX2 World Championship between Dutchman De Wolf and Belgian Lucas Coenen is closer than it’s been since the opening round, with the chasing Coenen closing in with the last two GP wins to trim the gap to 36 points. As in MXGP, it will go down to the very last day of the Championship, which also just happens to be De Wolf’s 20th birthday!
There will be more Champions crowned at Cozar, as the EMX250 European Championship has its final round to decide the three-way battle between series leader Mathis Valin, the Frenchman on the Bud Racing Kawasaki, Italian Valerio Lata for Beddini GASGAS Factory Juniors, and Dutch flyer Cas Valk, who is fresh from winning the British MX2 Championship for Gabriel SS24 KTM last weekend! Valin holds a 21-point lead over Lata, so could clinch the title in race one, and Valk is ten points further back in third. All three are MX2-bound for 2025, so this is their last chance for claiming EMX Championship glory!
The EMX125 Championship Presented by FMF also comes to its conclusion this weekend, and this one is even closer than MXGP, with just six points between new leader Gyan Doensen, the Dutchman on the Racestore KTM Factory Rookies team, and Hungarian Noel Zanocz for Fantic Factory Racing EMX125, who also field the Italian Simone Mancini, who has a small mathematical chance in third place, 32 points behind Doensen.
So with four Championships being decided over the weekend, the MXGP of Castilla La Mancha looks set to be an event full of celebration!
While the top three in the Championship have a total of 13 World Championships between them, with this year being the 14th, only two of those titles have truly been decided in the final round of a series!
Jorge Prado technically did clinch the 2018 MX2 world title, his first, in the final round, but his chief rival that year, Pauls Jonass, had already ruled himself out of that race with injury. Tim Gajser’s only final-round title win was also his first, in 2015, against Jonass as well, when he came in with an 18-point advantage over his main chaser.
Of course, the big final round showdown in recent years was the 2021 MXGP World Championships, where Jeffrey Herlings clinched the title in the final race of the year, ahead of Romain Febvre and Gajser! This year’s situation is certainly a new one for both contenders, and with the extra factor of Prado being in front of a home crowd, it will be intriguing to see who will come out on top!
Overall the top contenders have had varied success in Spain, as Herlings has the most among them with 4 victories, two in each class, whereas Prado has three wins, two at Xanadu and one at Lugo. Tim Gajser has to look back to his first MXGP title year in 2016 for his only win on Spanish soil, at Talavera de la Reina. Maxime Renaux, enjoying a strong return from injury for Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP, has won twice on Spanish soil before, once in each class at intu-Xanadu Arroyomolinos. Valentin Guillod of Team Ship-to-Cycle Honda Motoblouz SR has won in this area before, taking the MX2 class at Talavera in 2015!
Cozar will also see the second appearance in MXGP for the Ducati Factory MX Team, with Italian pilot Alessandro Lupino at the controls of the Desmo450 MX this time. They will be with us full-time in 2025 with Jeremy Seewer, who races for the last time with the Kawasaki Racing Team in Cozar and is looking to seal fourth in the series ahead of teammate Febvre!
Home fans will also be keen to see a strong showing for Ruben Fernandez, who was unable to compete on home soil earlier in the year for Team HRC, although for sure most of their support will be given to Prado, who aims to make it a clean sweep of Spanish victories in 2024 and win his second straight world title in the process!
MXGP – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Jorge Prado (ESP, GAS), 943 Points; 2. Tim Gajser (SLO, HON), 936 Points; 3. Jeffrey Herlings (NED, KTM), 895 Pts; 4. Jeremy Seewer (SUI, KAW), 643 Pts; 5. Romain Febvre (FRA, KAW), 611 Points; 6. Glenn Coldenhoff (NED, FAN), 574 Pts; 7. Calvin Vlaanderen (NED, YAM), 550 Pts; 8. Kevin Horgmo (NOR, HON), 428 Pts; 9. Valentin Guillod (SUI, HON), 359 Pts; 10. Brian Bogers (NED, FAN), 319 Pts.
In contrast to MXGP, the MX2 class will see a new World Champion in 2024, and for the first time since Alessio Chiodi won in the 125cc class in 1999, it will go to a Husqvarna rider, the 17th title for the brand and the first under its current Austrian ownership!
Kay de Wolf is looking to defend his 36-point advantage over Lucas Coenen, and the pair have each won a GP on Spanish soil this season. If Lucas makes less than 11 points on Kay through the RAM Qualifying Race and the first GP race on Sunday, then the Dutchman will be crowned Champion before the final gate drop of the campaign. However, Lucas Coenen has been on scintillating form, taking victory in both Türkiye and China to help his chances of wrestling the glory from his teammate!
Simon Laengenfelder is the only other rider in the field who has also won before on Spanish ground, having won the 2023 MX2 GP at intu-Xanadu Arroyomolinos. He is confirmed as the bronze medallist for the season but has still yet to win a Grand Prix for Red Bull GASGAS Factory Racing this season. With the pressure off, the German will be going all out to claim a first-place trophy on his favoured hard pack surface!
Another one keen to break his record of no GP wins for the year will be outgoing MX2 World Champion Andrea Adamo, who is sixth in the standings for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, while his teammate Liam Everts is confirmed in fourth despite being knocked out of the series with his crash in Shanghai. We all wish him a speedy recovery.
Mikkel Haarup will be looking to crown a successful debut season for the Monster Energy Triumph Racing team by holding onto fifth in the series and hoping for at least a podium in what will be his last MX2 Grand Prix.
Thibault Benistant won the RAM Qualifying Race at Lugo for Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2 and has had an impressive return from injury since the MXGP of Switzerland. His teammate Rick Elzinga is confirmed in seventh place for the year and will be looking to end 2024 in style!
Spanish riders Oriol Oliver for WZ Racing KTM, David Braceras for Fantic Factory Racing MX2, and Yago Martinez for TM Moto Racing will all be looking forward to the home crowd atmosphere.
The racing is sure to be intense with the title on the line in MX2, and as it has been all year the results are almost impossible to predict! Do not miss it!
MX2 – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Kay de Wolf (NED, HUS), 915 Points; 2. Lucas Coenen (BEL, HUS), 879 Pts; 3. Simon Laengenfelder (GER, GAS), 811 Points; 4. Liam Everts (BEL, KTM), 749 Pts; 5. Mikkel Haarup (DEN, TRI), 658 Pts; 6. Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), 632 Pts; 7. Rick Elzinga (NED, YAM), 555 Pts; 8. Sacha Coenen (BEL, KTM), 456 Pts; 9. Camden McLellan (RSA, TRI), 395 Pts; 10. Ferruccio Zanchi (ITA, HON), 359 Pts.
Don’t miss your chance to watch the final round of the 2024 FIM Motocross World Championships, The MXGP of Castilla La Mancha this weekend, get your tickets HERE!
TIMETABLE
SATURDAY: 08:20 EMX125 Group 1 Free practice, 08:50 EMX125 Group 1 Free practice, 09:20 EMX250, 09:50 EMX125 Group 1 Qualifying Practice, 10:30 MX2 Free Practice, 11:00 MXGP Free Practice, 12:20 EMX125 Group 2 Qualifying practice, 13:00 EMX250 Qualifying practice, 13:40 MX2 Time Practice, 14:15 MXGP Time Practice, 15:00 EMX125 Race 1, 15:45 EMX250 Race 1, 16:35 MX2 RAM Qualifying Race, 17:25 MXGP RAM Qualifying Race.
SUNDAY: 09:45 EMX125 Race 2, 10:25 MX2 Warm-up, 10:45 MXGP Warm-up, 11:30 EMX250 Race 2, 13:15 MX2 Race 1, 14:15 MXGP Race 1, 16:10 MX2 Race 2, 17:10 MXGP Race 2.
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Or visit the official MXGP website mxgp.com
©Words/Images are from official press release posted courtesy of www.mxgp.com
