The MXGP of Spain Welcomes the Riders Back to the Forests of Lugo

por admin · 8 mayo 2025

The 2025 FIM Motocross World Championship stays on the Iberian Peninsula this weekend as the teams and crews make the relatively short journey of under 400km to the north-western corner of Spain, and the Circuito Municipal Jorge Prado near the city of Lugo in the province of Galicia!

Obviously named after the reigning World Champion Jorge Prado, who grew up almost within sight of the circuit, this will be the second GP held at the venue after last season’s MXGP of Galicia. The new circuit was well received by riders and fans alike, with a woodland feel to the track creating a more enclosed, intense atmosphere with a softer, grippier surface than most Spanish venues traditionally offer. It’s one of 19 circuits to host a Motocross Grand Prix in Spain, but the only one in the region of Galicia. Home hero Prado won all three races here last year to keep his local fans happy, while the MX2 class saw race wins for both Lucas Coenen and Andrea Adamo, with the Belgian getting the overall verdict on the second race tie-breaker.

Coenen is coming off the back of two consecutive MXGP overall victories and, with the absence of injured Honda HRC’s Tim Gajser in Portugal, the teenage sensation is suddenly a title contender for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, even though he has a sizeable 43-point gap to make up on new series leader Romain Febvre. The Frenchman will wear the red plate on his Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP machine for the first time since the final round of the 2021 season, when he finished just five points off the world title!

Gajser’s HRC Honda teammate Ruben Fernandez claimed his first podium finish for 19 months in Portugal last weekend, which moved him up to fifth in the standings, and raises the hope that he can carry the home crowd’s expectations for success in his first GP at the Lugo circuit!

In contrast to MXGP, the MX2 class now sees its top three contenders all within ten points of each other, as reigning World Champion Kay de Wolf has just a four-point advantage for Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing over the first of two Red Bull KTM Factory Racing riders, Simon Laengenfelder in second, just six points ahead of Adamo, who enjoyed the first perfect three-victory weekend of his career at Águeda!

Spanish hopefuls David Braceras of JM Honda Racing, Oriol Oliver of Gabriel SS24 KTM Factory Juniors, and Guillem Farres of Monster Energy Triumph Racing, currently sit all together in the series from 14^th to 16^th position, with just 11 points separating the three of them! The battle to be top Spaniard could be as hot as the battle at the front!

Lugo also hosts the second round of the FIM Women’s Motocross World Championship, and all Spanish hopes will be on local heroine and last year’s Vice-Champion Daniela Guillen, who crashed from the lead of race one in Sardegna and lies seventh in the Championship, but with clearly enough speed to challenge reigning Champion and series leader Lotte van Drunen. The De Baets Yamaha rider has an eight-point lead over fellow Dutch pilots Shana van der Vlist and Van Venrooy KTM star Lynn Valk but watch for the #255 of Guillen on her RFME Spain National Team GASGAS to haul back the 23-point gap to the top!

The EMX250 European Championship is approaching its halfway stage with round six on the horizon at Lugo, and VHR VRT Yamaha Official EMX250 rider Janis Reisulis put in a stunning maximum in the Portuguese mud to build up his series lead to 12 points. JM Racing Honda’s Hungarian star Noel Zanocz is second to the Latvian, but the biggest cheers will be readied for Venum BUD RACING Kawasaki rider Francesco Garcia, who is only two points behind Zanocz and scored a second place in his last race on Spanish soil, back at Cózar in March!

It was all change at the top of the MXGP World Championship after Portugal, as Romain Febvre took ownership of the red plate with second overall, aided of course by the absence of Tim Gajser through a shoulder injury. It is still yet to be confirmed whether or not the Slovenian will be able to line up at Lugo. There is a full GP race’s worth of points between Febvre and Gajser at the top, although for sure the Frenchman will have eyes on the gap back to third place Lucas Coenen, who is only 18 points away from Gajser and 43 behind the Kawasaki man.

Febvre, who has yet to win a GP in Spain during his long career, took 2-4 finishes to climb the podium in third overall here last year, matching the points of Red Bull KTM Factory Racing star Jeffrey Herlings, who was second on the tie-break, while Gajser was fourth overall with 6-3 finishes after a small crash early in race one. Calvin Vlaanderen took a top three finish in the opener last year for Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP, and is starting to show some good form this season after working his way back to fitness from last year’s knee injury.

Coenen won two of three MX2 GPs held in Spain last season, including the victory in Galicia, although his two-GP winning streak has come at circuits where he really struggled in 2024, so who knows how he will go at a track where he has won before! He could become the first MXGP rookie since Herlings in 2017 to win three GPs in a row, and who would bet against him?

Still fourth in the Championship is Fantic Factory Racing’s Glenn Coldenhoff, who took seventh overall at Lugo last year and might be hoping for more rain to play to his strengths. Local favourite Fernandez is within striking distance of the Dutchman in the standings after moving up to fifth with his podium in Portugal, and for sure he will find strength from the local fans who will make their presence felt as they get behind him for another good result!

Like Fernandez, Maxime Renaux was out injured for last year’s MXGP of Galicia, and the Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP man is once more fighting for fitness after his big crash in Switzerland. With decent speed in Portugal, he won’t have given up on a title charge and will surely feel at home on the Lugo circuit.

The MXGP machines are tough to handle around the twisty corners and big jumps of the Spanish track, so the action is bound to be spectacular in the premiere class!

MXGP – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Romain Febvre (FRA, KAW), 330 Points; 2. Tim Gajser (SLO, HON), 305 Points; 3. Lucas Coenen (BEL, KTM), 287 Points; 4. Glenn Coldenhoff (NED, FAN), 250 Pts; 5. Ruben Fernandez (ESP, HON), 223 Pts; 6. Maxime Renaux (FRA, YAM), 217 Points; 7. Andrea Bonacorsi (ITA, FAN), 194 Points; 8. Kevin Horgmo (NOR, HON), 177 Pts; 9. Calvin Vlaanderen (NED, YAM), 162 Pts; 10. Jeremy Seewer (SUI, DUC), 156 Pts.

The MX2 class continues to be gloriously unpredictable in 2025, as Andrea Adamo took his first ever wins in wet conditions, and he took all three over the course of last weekend’s MXGP of Portugal to put himself within ten points of series leader Kay de Wolf!

The battles in Lugo last year saw Adamo claim second overall and the first race win, the second and ultimately the final one he enjoyed as defending Champion, but he has shown much better form in 2025, already more than doubling his career total with three GP victories, while adding three race wins, and two Qualifying Race triumphs to boot!

De Wolf just missed the podium with fourth overall in Lugo last year, on a tie-break with his 2025 Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing teammate Liam Everts! Simon Laengenfelder had a worse time of it in 2024 with 7-9 scores for just ninth overall, and for sure he will be looking to improve on that to shoot for the red plate from just four points back of the defending Champ!

Everts had a nightmare weekend in Portugal with just 18 points, and is now an amazing 59 behind his teammate, although still fourth in the standings. A repeat of his 2024 podium must be the bare minimum of his ambitions coming to Lugo this year.

Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2 rider Thibault Benistant has had an inconsistent pair of GPs since winning the second race in Trentino, and his fifth in the series is under threat from Sacha Coenen, who put in a solid second in race two at Águeda for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, and is now only three points behind the Frenchman. Sacha moved past the Monster Energy Triumph Racing rider Camden McLellan, one of eight race winners in the series this year, but now back to seventh in the Championship.

Picking a winner in MX2 before the start of the weekend is a complete lottery! Have a sweepstake at home, no matter how big your family is, any of the top ten could win at Lugo in what is sure to be another wild affair!

MX2 – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Kay de Wolf (NED, HUS), 328 Points; 2. Simon Laengenfelder (GER, KTM), 324 Points; 3. Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), 318 Pts; 4. Liam Everts (BEL, HUS), 269 Pts; 5. Thibault Benistant (FRA, YAM), 225 Pts; 6. Sacha Coenen (BEL, KTM), 222 Pts; 7. Camden McLellan (RSA, TRI), 210 Pts; 8. Cas Valk (NED, KTM), 189 Pts; 9. Ferruccio Zanchi (ITA, HON), 168 Pts; 10. Valerio Lata (ITA, HON), 160 Pts.

TIMETABLE

SATURDAY:
09:30 WMX Free Practice, 10:00 EMX250 Free Practice, 10:30 MX2 Free Practice, 11:00 MXGP Free Practice, 12:20 WMX Qualifying Practice, 13:00 EMX250 Qualifying Practice, 13:40 MX2 Time Practice, 14:15 MXGP Time Practice, 15:00 WMX Race 1, 15:45 EMX250 Race 1, 16:35 MX2 Qualifying Race, 17:25 MXGP Qualifying Race.

SUNDAY:
09:40 EMX250 Race 2, 10:25 MX2 Warm-up, 10:45 MXGP Warm-up, 11:30 WMX 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