After making its debut on the FIM Motocross World Championship Calendar to close the curtain for 2024, the Spanish venue of Cozar welcomes the MXGP elite back to Europe for the second round of the 2025 season, the MXGP of Castilla La Mancha!
Named after the landlocked autonomous community that it is set in, the track, which has been extensively worked on since last year, 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. Last season a massive crowd cheered home hero Jorge Prado to the MXGP class victory and his fourth world title, while Lucas Coenen took all three races in MX2, but was unable to prevent Kay de Wolf from sealing the deal to become World Champion for the first time!
The picture looks very different in MXGP after the 2025 season opener in Argentina, as French fighters Maxime Renaux and Romain Febvre start the European leg of the campaign just one point apart!
In MX2, De Wolf leads the way again, but a wild opening round shows that the Dutchman has plenty of competition if he wants to keep the #1 plate on the Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing machine! Sacha Coenen claimed the second race win for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, and lies just three points behind the defending Champ, with his teammate Simon Laengenfelder only two further points back!
Besides the GP classes the EMX250 European Championship fires into life at Cozar, with the top three riders from last year all graduating to MX2, so the field is wide open! Remaining top ten Championship finishers Ivano van Erp, Nico Greutmann, and Max Werner will be joined by last year’s EMX125 top three – Noel Zanocz, Gyan Doensen, and Simone Mancini – which should generate a massively competitive series! Add in Bobby Bruce and Hakon Osterhagen, returnees from MX2, plus Australian star Jake Cannon into the mix, and the outcome is tough to predict! Home riders Elias Escandell, Francisco Garcia, and Salvador Perez will certainly be striving for the podium!
The EMX125 Championship Presented by FMF also kickstarts its season with a new cast of characters all looking to establish themselves at this higher level. Francesco Bellei is the highest remaining rider from last year, who won the final race at Cozar in 2024, so he is sure to be a force against second-generation racers Levi Townley and Jarne Bervoets, Matterley Basin bLU cRU 125cc winner Jamie Keith, Mano Faure, Aron Katona, and Dani Heitink. A massive 64 riders, including 13 Spaniards hoping for home glory, will be lining up to sprinkle the Cozar circuit with the sweet smell of two-stroke machinery!
The MXGP of Castilla La Mancha is ready to launch MXGP into Europe for 2025!
MXGP World Championship leader Maxime Renaux earned the red plate for the first time in MXGP with his Argentina Qualifying Race win, and defended it with the overall verdict on Sunday for Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP. Although only recording ninth overall here last year, his history in Spain is a colourful one. He took his World Junior 125cc title in this country in 2015, and has taken a GP victory in both MX2 and MXGP classes at the intù-Xanadu Arroyomolinos venue, although a crash there in 2023 seriously affected both that season and the next with foot injuries.
His main competition in 2025 have not achieved stellar success in this part of the world, however, as Romain Febvre, second by only a single point after a brilliant weekend in Argentina for Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP, has never won a Grand Prix here, only taking a single race win in 2021. He has finished third overall four times in Spain, most recently at Lugo last season. For sure he will be searching to remedy this mark on his record!
Tim Gajser, nine points behind Renaux for Honda HRC, has taken just one GP win on Spanish soil, back in his debut MXGP season of 2016, and was second overall at Cozar last year while seeing his title chance disappear. His teammate Ruben Fernandez has big shoes to fill as the new home favourite. 11th in the table after Argentina, and 11th here last year, he will be fired to return to the podium, as he did at intù-Xanadu in 2023!
One of the big surprises of the opening round was the performance of the new Aruba.it Ducati Factory MX Team, who took both Fox Holeshot Awards on Sunday and saw Mattia Guadagnini claim fourth in both races for fourth overall! Mattia will be looking to forget his experience at Cozar last season, which ended with him on the ground, but instead he’ll be looking to repeat his podium performance in 2023 when he took his best MXGP result of second overall near Madrid, as well as his last ever EMX250 win in 2020.
Glenn Coldenhoff lies fifth in the series for Fantic Factory Racing, and he tasted Spanish podium celebrations with current teammate Brian Bogers back in 2022, behind Renaux! Sixth in the Championship is the fast rookie Lucas Coenen, who has been recovering from arm injuries and was very happy with his performance in Argentina for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing. The question is, can he quickly return to the form that saw him win two of the three MX2 GPs held in Spain last season?!
Of the remaining contenders, privateer Valentin Guillod is the only other rider lining up at Cozar with Spanish success in his record, having taken the MX2 class victory at Talavera in 2015!
The 2025 MXGP season has only begun to give us a clue as to its current form book. Let’s see how much the MXGP of Castilla La Mancha can tell us!
MXGP – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Maxime Renaux (FRA, YAM), 57 Points; 2. Romain Febvre (FRA, KAW), 56 Points; 3. Tim Gajser (SLO, HON), 48 Points; 4.Mattia Guadagnini (ITA, DUC), 40 Pts; 5. Glenn Coldenhoff (NED, FAN), 35 Pts; 6. Lucas Coenen (BEL, KTM), 27 Points; 7. Jeremy Seewer (SUI, DUC), 25 Pts; 8. Kevin Horgmo (NOR, HON), 25 Pts; 9. Pauls Jonass (LAT, KAW), 25 Pts; 10. Jago Geerts (BEL, YAM), 22 Pts.
The big red #1 plate in the MX2 class will be worn by the defending World Champion, Kay de Wolf, and he will be attempting to repeat his win in Spain for the second round of the 2024 season, his only win in this country.
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 intù-Xanadu Arroyomolinos. The three-time bronze medallist looked good for the win in Argentina until a disastrous final two laps of the day, but still lies just five points shy of the lead and will be happy to be back in Europe healthy and ready to go! His teammate Sacha Coenen is also looking strong after winning race two in Argentina, and the young Belgian with more Fox Holeshot Awards than anyone in the field could be a real force at Cozar for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing.
A surprise fourth in the standings is De Wolf’s new Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing teammate Liam Everts, after minimal preparation due to injury he delivered a stunning performance in Argentina and should only get stronger from just 13 points off the lead. 2023 Champion Andrea Adamo finished second overall at Cozar last year and looked strong with the Qualifying Race win in Argentina. He also won a race in Lugo last year and will be full of confidence on Spanish soil, unfortunate to be only fifth in the standings but knowing there’s a long season ahead!
Thibault Benistant won the Qualifying Race at Lugo last year, and stood on the podium at Cozar in September, so he will be looking to recover from a lowly 11th overall in Argentina for Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2.
Spanish rider Guillem Farres will race his first Grand Prix in his home country for three years, and he showed good speed to start the year tenth in the series for Monster Energy Triumph Racing. His countryman Oriol Oliver showed great pace at Còrdoba for BTS Racing KTM but was hindered by crashes, while David Braceras scored a career-best race finish of fourth in race one for his JM Racing Honda debut. All of the home riders should enjoy serious crowd support around the compact Cozar circuit and the atmosphere will go stellar if they find some success!
The MXGP of Castilla La Mancha promises to launch into the European season in fine style. Not one to be missed!
MX2 – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Kay de Wolf (NED, HUS), 49 Points; 2. Sacha Coenen (BEL, KTM), 46 Pts; 3. Simon Laengenfelder (GER, KTM), 44 Points; 4. Liam Everts (BEL, HUS), 36 Pts; 5. Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), 32 Pts; 6. Camden McLellan (RSA, TRI), 29 Pts; 7. Cas Valk (NED, KTM), 28 Pts; 8. Karlis Reisulis (LAT, YAM), 27 Pts; 9. Thibault Benistant (FRA, YAM), 26 Pts; 10. Guillem Farres (ESP, TRI), 25 Pts.
Don’t miss your chance to watch the MXGP of Castilla La Mancha this weekend. Get your tickets HERE!
TIMETABLE
SATURDAY:
07:35 EMX125 Group 1 Free Practice, 08:00 EMX125 Group 2 Free Practice, 08:25 EMX250 Group 1 Free Practice, 08:50 EMX250 Group 2 Free Practice, 09:15 EMX125 Group 1 Qualifying Practice, 09:50 EMX125 Group 2 Qualifying Practice, 10:25 MX2 Free Practice, 10:55 MXGP Free Practice, 11:55 EMX250 Group 1 Qualifying Practice, 12:35 EMX250 Group 2 Qualifying Practice, 13:15 MX2 Time Practice, 13:50 MXGP Time Practice, 14:35 EMX125 Race 1, 15:25 EMX250 Race 1, 16:20 MX2 Qualifying Race, 17:10 MXGP Qualifying Race.
SUNDAY:
08:45 EMX125 Race 2, 09:25 MX2 Warm-up, 09:45 MXGP Warm-up, 10:30 EMX250 Race 2, 12:15 MX2 Race 1, 13:15 MXGP Race 1, 15:10 MX2 Race 2, 16:10 MXGP Race 2.
Watch Motorcycle Racing in the UK via TNT Sports and Amazon
For more news check out our dedicated MXGP/MX2 News page
Or visit the official MXGP website mxgp.com
©Words/Images are from an official press release posted courtesy of www.mxgp.com
