MXGP is off to The West Coast of Europe for The MXGP of Portugal

The 2025 FIM Motocross World Championship returns after a weekend off to the first of an Iberian double-header as the MXGP of Portugal takes place at the Crossódromo Internacional de Águeda, just over 30km inland from the Atlantic coastline of the most western European nation.

The seventh round of the series will be a welcome tonic to the region as it recovers from the recent nationwide power outage. It is, of course, a very familiar venue to the MXGP Paddock, one of only three in the country to ever host Grand Prix Motocross.  Agueda has done so for almost forty years, having hosted its first GP event back in August 1985, when Dave Strijbos took victory on his 125cc Honda, sharing top points with his bitter title rival and eventual Champion Pekka Vehkonen. Red Bull KTM Factory Racing legends Antonio Cairoli and Jeffrey Herlings are joint holders of the most wins record for this circuit, which is currently at five apiece, although the Italian has more race wins with twelve compared to the Dutchman’s eight.

“The Bullet” took his first race win of 2024 here in very muddy conditions, and the forecast suggests we may see a little more of that sort of weather, so last year’s GP winners Pauls Jonass and Liam Everts might be looking forward to thriving in the bright orange mud once again!

The big news this weekend is that Tim Gajser, who looked to have picked up an injury in his crash at the MXGP of Switzerland, will be racing for Honda HRC to defend his Championship lead, and with a GP win here in 2022, plus the first race victory last season, he is at least returning to a track that he knows well.  His main Championship rival, Romain Febvre, has finished second overall here in each of the last two years for Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP, and he would dearly like to go one better this weekend to hack into the Slovenian’s 27-point series lead.

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The MX2 World Championship continues to see its momentum swing between the four leading protagonists, as Red Bull KTM Factory Racing star Simon Laengenfelder took a flawless double win in Switzerland, to reduce the gap at the top to just three points between him and Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing’s reigning World Champion Kay de Wolf.  Kay’s teammate Everts is just 30 points back in fourth, but only seven behind Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Andrea Adamo for third.

The EMX250 European Championship is also tight at the top, with VHR VRT Yamaha Official EMX250 rider Janis Reisulis holding a slender two-point advantage over Venum BUD Racing Kawasaki pilot Francesco Garcia, and the Spaniard will have plenty of support over the next two rounds! JM Racing Honda’s Hungarian flyer Noel Zanocz is tied on points with Garcia, and won an EMX125 race at Agueda last year, as Reisulis did in 2023, so he should also be a force this weekend!

The EMX125 Presented by FMF Racing Championship reaches its halfway point this weekend, and is being led by Hungarian Aron Katona for Racestore KTM Factory Rookies after another overall win at Frauenfeld, with Francesco Bellei for Fantic Factory Racing EMX125 in second place, a hefty 39 points behind! Katona’s teammate Nicolò Alvisi is three points behind Bellei and looking to advance, with many others hoping to enjoy the hardpack of Agueda to make up lost ground!

The MXGP of Portugal will be tough and challenging across all of the classes, whatever the conditions, and a good atmosphere always makes this a very enjoyable Grand Prix!

Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s rookie Lucas Coenen made history in Switzerland to become the youngest ever GP winner on a 450 machine, with a double victory for the amazing 18-year-old!  This puts him up to third in the Championship standings, although still 78 points away from leader Tim Gajser.

Last year’s very wet Portuguese round was one of Lucas’ worst of the year, with 16-8 finishes only just putting him in the top ten in MX2.  Gajser, in contrast, took a race win before crashing multiple times in the second race and salvaging tenth.  The win went the way of Pauls Jonass, his first in the MXGP class, with two second-place finishes.  He is returning from injuries sustained in Sardegna to compete this weekend for Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP, having dropped to 13th in the standings.

Also on the recovery from injury, but improving each weekend, is Jeffrey Herlings.  Having won here in 2011, ’12, and ’13 in MX2, then in 2018 and 2023 in MXGP, “The Bullet” took the race two victory at Agueda after a mechanical issue in race one last year, which denied him the chance of the GP victory.  If conditions take a turn, this could help the Dutchman who currently sits 18th in the Championship.

Fourth in the standings is Fantic Factory Racing’s own Dutch veteran, Glenn Coldenhoff. He has never made the podium at Agueda and is hunting to break that duck, although just as keen to get their first podium finishes are Maxime Renaux for Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP, and local Honda HRC favourite Ruben Fernandez, both chasing the Hoff in the Championship table.

Seventh in the Championship is top Italian Andrea Bonacorsi for Fantic Factory Racing, and he took a win here in his EMX250 Championship-winning season of 2023. He also raced in the MXGP class for the first time here last season, finishing a credible sixth overall in the mud!

Other past winners at Agueda include 2023 MX2 winner Jago Geerts, who is steadily moving forward in 2025 for Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP, and Jeremy Seewer, who won the MX2 class in 2017 and has just come off his best weekend yet for the Aruba.it Ducati Factory MX Team, having claimed the team’s first ever podium finish at his home GP to put him ninth in the Championship.

Depending on how well Gajser has recovered from his Swiss crash, the Portuguese GP could be decisive for the future of the 2025 Championship, whatever the weather may bring us!

MXGP – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Tim Gajser (SLO, HON), 305 Points; 2. Romain Febvre (FRA, KAW), 278 Points; 3. Lucas Coenen (BEL, KTM), 227 Points; 4. Glenn Coldenhoff (NED, FAN), 224 Pts; 5. Maxime Renaux (FRA, YAM), 188 Points; 6. Ruben Fernandez (ESP, HON), 178 Pts; 7. Andrea Bonacorsi (ITA, FAN), 163 Points; 8. Kevin Horgmo (NOR, HON), 163 Pts; 9. Jeremy Seewer (SUI, DUC), 138 Pts; 10. Calvin Vlaanderen (NED, YAM), 126 Pts.

Reigning MX2 World Champion Kay de Wolf has kept the red plate for the longest time of anyone in 2025, but his lead was diminished with a tricky Swiss GP, as Simon Laengenfelder ended his 20-month GP victory draught with a masterful 1-1 in the Frauenfeld sunshine.

De Wolf just missed the podium with fourth overall in Portugal last year, but Laengenfelder failed to score in race two after a second in race one, so the form book is tough to measure for 2025!  For sure though, if it does rain then the obvious favourite would be Liam Everts after his dominant win in the deep stuff in 2024, and a similar display saw him win at Cozar, his first victory for the Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing squad.

Last year’s event saw a double podium for Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2, with Rick Elzinga second and Thibault Benistant third.  The Frenchman is fifth in the points this season and needs a good couple of weekends to put himself back in the Championship picture. Elzinga went 1-1 here back in his 2022 EMX250 title-winning campaign, and is up to 11th this year after fighting back from off-season injury.

Camden McLellan picked up an injury at last year’s event here, but the Monster Energy Triumph Racing rider could be a real threat after picking up his first GP race victory in Trentino, and sitting sixth in the standings.  Cas Valk won both races in EMX250 last year and is having a great start to his rookie season for Venrooy KTM Racing, currently eighth in points, directly behind the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing pilot Sacha Coenen.

All of the top seven in the series, plus Honda HRC man Ferruccio Zanchi, have won races this year, making MX2 an unpredictable affair.  Will the red plate change hands yet again after Portugal?!

 

MX2 – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Kay de Wolf (NED, HUS), 281 Points; 2. Simon Laengenfelder (GER, KTM), 278 Points; 3. Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), 258 Pts; 4. Liam Everts (BEL, HUS), 251 Pts; 5. Thibault Benistant (FRA, YAM), 203 Pts; 6. Camden McLellan (RSA, TRI), 191 Pts; 7. Sacha Coenen (BEL, KTM), 189 Pts; 8. Cas Valk (NED, KTM), 174 Pts; 9. Valerio Lata (ITA, HON), 142 Pts; 10. Ferruccio Zanchi (ITA, HON), 140 Pts.

TIMETABLE

SATURDAY:

09:30 EMX125 Free Practice, 10:00 EMX250 Free Practice, 10:30 MX2 Free Practice, 11:00 MXGP Free Practice, 12:20 EMX125 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 Qualifying Race, 17:25 MXGP Qualifying Race.

SUNDAY:

09:40 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.

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