The Final Showdown is on Down Under at The MXGP of Australia Presented by Sitzler
MXGP: It all comes down to this! Round 20 of the FIM Motocross World Championships, the final round of the season, t
MXGP: It all comes down to this! Round 20 of the FIM Motocross World Championships, the final round of the season, takes place this weekend to decide the fate of all three world titles at the brand-new Hidden Valley Motorsports Complex not far from the centre of the Northern Territory’s capital city of Darwin.
The 2025 MXGP, MX2, and WMX World Champions will all be crowned at the MXGP of Australia Presented by Sitzler!
This will be only the fifth time that World Championship Motocross will be run within the world’s biggest island nation, at adult level anyway, as the first event was held way back in 1992, when the Team USA line-up of Billy Liles, Mike LaRocco, and Jeff Emig won the Motocross des Nations at the south-eastern venue of Manjimup. The first GP was held at the same circuit a year later, and saw Dutchman Pedro Tragter clinch the 125cc World Championship with second overall behind Italian Andrea Bartolini. Eight years later and the 500cc class visited these shores, at the south-western venue of Broadford near Melbourne. Current Red Bull KTM Factory Racing Team Manager Joel Smets was victorious in Victoria that day, and he was back there the following year as the 2001 three-class format was run for the most recent Grand Prix in Australia. James Dobb, Mickael Pichon, and Stefan Everts took the single-race GP wins that weekend.
Australia also hosted a World Junior Motocross Championship event in 2018, at the Horsham venue, also in the southern state of Victoria. Local riders Bailey Malkiewicz and Braden Plath took titles that day, as did American Caden Braswell. Several riders who are lining up this weekend were also there at Horsham seven years ago, and will be hoping to take advantage of their southern hemisphere experience!
Fast forward to 2025, and Smets’ top rider Jeffrey Herlings brings a three-GP winning streak to the event down under for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing. However, the Championship battle is between French veteran Romain Febvre, red plate holder for Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP, and the teenage Belgian tearawayLucas Coenen for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing. For the second year running, Coenen heads to the final round with a mountain to climb if he is to come away with gold, but he also knows that nothing is over until the final chequered flag flies!
As per usual, things are much closer in MX2, with Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s red plate holder Simon Längenfelder holding a slim margin over reigning World Champion and Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing rider Kay de Wolf. The German is looking to end a run of three years of bronze medals by striking gold this weekend, and top three positions in all three races will do the job, even if his Dutch rival takes all three race wins. In the wild and unpredictable MX2 class, however, anything is possible with a hatful of contenders able to get amongst the title combatants!
In the Women’s World Motocross Championships, there’s another teenager versus veteran battle as reigning World Champion Lotte van Drunen leads the series for De Baets Yamaha by just 16 points from six-time WMX Champ Kiara Fontanesi on her MX FontaRacing GASGAS. Just a point behind Fontanesi is the RFME Spain National Team rider Daniela Guillen, also in with a chance of depriving Van Drunen of her second straight world title. Amazingly, Lotte finished fourth in the 65cc class of the 2018 Junior World Championships in Australia, and will be looking to add to her good memories of life down under! With many fast Australian wildcards likely to get in the mix this weekend, the Championship finale might not be as straightforward as some would think!
As with last weekend’s event in Shanghai, the heat will be higher than most Europeans will be used to, so the physical challenge will be tangible for every competitor in the final Grand Prix of what has been an epic 2025 season!
With strong consistency over the last two Grands Prix, Romain Febvre has rebuilt his Championship lead to a mighty 47 points over Lucas Coenen, who struggled in the heat of Shanghai last weekend with 12th place overall, his worst result of the entire season. After a second corner crash in race two, the young Belgian seemed resigned to his fate, and needs major issues for the red plate holder in order to deprive him of the title.
Febvre, aiming to take his second world crown, ten years and eight days (maybe seven!) after his first, could wrap things up in Saturday’s Qualifying Race if he scores four points more than Coenen. He only needs to score 14 points across the whole weekend to be Champion even if the Belgian wins all three outings.
Behind them, Glenn Coldenhoff has wrapped up third place in the World Championship for Fantic Factory Racing MXGP. It’s the second bronze medal of his distinguished 16-year GP career, and the 35-year-old Dutch veteran could well be lining up at a Grand Prix for the final time this weekend if some rumours are to be believed.
China saw a welcome return to form for Ruben Fernandez, taking his third podium of the year for Honda HRC, and he needs to stay on the gas this weekend as he holds just a 15-point advantage over Jeffrey Herlings for fourth in the Championship. In the form Jeffrey’s in, he might need every point of that gap! The Bullet’s three-GP win streak has moved him past Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP rider Calvin Vlaanderen for fifth in the series, while Calvin’s teammate Maxime Renaux is a further 35 points back in seventh. Both Yamaha riders will be looking to finish their season off with a podium result after looking strong in recent GPs.
Renaux has got to watch for Fantic Factory Racing MXGP’s Andrea Bonacorsi, who is only 17 points behind him in the series, but the final two spots in the top ten are virtually sealed. Tim Gajser looked strong in China for Honda HRC, and will be out for nothing less than a victorious end to the season after looking like the title favourite before his shoulder injury. Jeremy Seewer is pretty secure in tenth for Aruba.it Ducati Factory MX Team, which is a fine result for the Italian brand in their first full year of competition at the very top of the sport.
Jeremy’s Aruba.it Ducati Factory MX Team rider Mattia Guadagnini actually finished second in the 125cc Junior World Championship in Australia in 2018, to Bailey Malkiewicz in the 125cc class, while Aussie wildcard Zac Watson competed in the 85cc class that day too!
It will be a landmark day for many in the MXGP World Championship, with stories of many top riders likely to change teams after this race, so this might be the last time they run with the colours that we are very used to seeing many of them in! As the world title gets decided this weekend, watch for some major celebrations as history will be made, whichever way the gold medal goes!
MXGP – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Romain Febvre (FRA, KAW), 929 Points; 2. Lucas Coenen (BEL, KTM), 882 Pts; 3. Glenn Coldenhoff (NED, FAN), 665 Pts; 4. Ruben Fernandez (ESP, HON), 599 Pts; 5. Jeffrey Herlings (NED, KTM), 582 Pts; 6. Calvin Vlaanderen (NED, YAM) 560 Pts; 7. Maxime Renaux (FRA, YAM), 525 Pts; 8. Andrea Bonacorsi (ITA, FAN), 508 Pts; 9. Tim Gajser (SLO, HON), 464 Pts; 10. Jeremy Seewer (SUI, DUC), 368 Pts.
The MX2 World Championship has been incredibly entertaining all season long, with 11 different riders winning either a Qualifying Race, a GP Race, or both since the start of the campaign in Argentina! Such has been the diversity of the results, that not one rider has taken back-to-back GP victories all year long in the class!
Simon Längenfelder nudged slightly further ahead of Kay de Wolf with his performances in China, but 16 points is not a massive gap at all over the defending World Champion, who will be hoping that the new circuit, which is described as “Sand/Clay”, will be on the softer side of that description, playing to the strengths that he has shown all year long. The Dutchman has to go all-out for three race wins, and hope that a few of the many other contenders can hold back the German, who basically needs to score 45 points across the three races, even if De Wolf takes a maximum points haul. De Wolf also has history in Australia, finishing second overall in the 2018 85cc World Juniors at Horsham!
Other riders who raced that event include Bike-It Kawasaki’s Kay Karssemakers, who was third in the 85cc class, Camden McLellan who took fifth, and Liam Everts, who won race one but suffered a DNF in race two due to damage from a crash! Rick Elzinga, now with Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2, finished sixth overall in the 125cc class that day. It will be Rick’s last ride in MX2 this weekend.
As for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing riders Andrea Adamo and Sacha Coenen, they are pretty much set in their current Championship positions of third and fourth, although Adamo has an extremely thin chance of catching De Wolf for second. Coenen will be going all out to become the only winner of back-to-back GPs after his victory in China.
With Thibault Benistant out for the year, he is now guaranteed to finish seventh in the Championship for Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2. Camden McLellan has moved up to fifth for Monster Energy Triumph Racing, with Liam Everts just six points behind the South African for Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing, so it could be tasty between those two if they get together on track!
Behind Benistant is the second Monster Energy Triumph Racing rider, Guillem Farres, who sits 14 points ahead of Honda HRC’s rookie Valerio Lata for eighth in the standings, while Kawasaki Racing Team MX2’s French whizz-kid Mathis Valin is just 13 further back from Lata, with no-one able to knock him out of the top ten in his first World Championship campaign.
The battle for the world MX2 crown is enthralling and could go right to the very end of the final race, and what should be a memorable first MXGP event in Australia for 24 years is not one to be missed! Get a shrimp on the barbie for breakfast and tune in to the MXGP of Australia Presented by Sitzler! It could be one for the ages!
MX2 – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Simon Längenfelder (GER, KTM), 884 Points; 2. Kay de Wolf (NED, HUS), 868 Pts; 3. Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), 817 Pts; 4. Sacha Coenen (BEL, KTM), 756 Pts; 5. Camden McLellan (RSA, TRI), 612 Pts; 6. Liam Everts (BEL, HUS), 606 Pts; 7. Thibault Benistant (FRA, YAM), 603 Pts; 8. Guillem Farres (ESP, TRI), 461 Pts; 9. Valerio Lata (ITA, HON), 447 Pts; 10. Mathis Valin (FRA, KAW), 434 Pts.
TIMETABLE
SATURDAY: 08:25: Blåkläder Start Practice MX2, 08:55 Blåkläder Start Practice MXGP, 09:45 WMX Free practice, 10:15 MX2 Free practice, 10:45 MXGP Free practice, 12:10 WMX Qualifying practice, 12:50 MX2 Time practice, 13:30 MXGP Time practice, 14:40 WMX Race 1, 15:25 MX2 Qualifying Race, 16:10 MXGP Qualifying Race
SUNDAY: 09:45 WMX Race 2, 10:25 MX2 Warm-up, 10:45 MXGP Warm-up, 12:15 MX2 Race 1, 13:15 MXGP Race 1, 15:10 MX2 Race 2, 16:10 MXGP Race 2.
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