The 2025 FIM Motocross World Championship heads to its easternmost point yet for round ten at the glorious Talkessel circuit in the municipality of Teutschenthal, proving that time flies when you’re having fun, as we are incredibly completing the first half of this year’s series with the Liqui Moly MXGP of Germany!
The venue is on classic Saxon grassland, and has played host to 27 MXGP events, as well as the 2013 Monster Energy Motocross of Nations that saw the most recent win in that event for Team Belgium! Just like that weekend, when the Germans were reigning Champions, this year’s event sees a home favourite wearing a red plate, as Red Bull KTM Factory Racing star Simon Laengenfelder took the lead in the MX2 World Championship with a double victory at last weekend’s MXGP of France and looks to be in the form of his life. He will look to get the chainsaws revving and the smoke flares ignited in the tight German valley!
Simon will be looking to emulate Romain Febvre’s performance at Ernée, as the MXGP red plate holder took a loudly-cheered home GP victory to consolidate his lead in the World Championship for Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP. The veteran Frenchman holds a 47-point Championship lead over Laengenfelder’s teammate Lucas Coenen, who had a perfect Sunday in MX2 at this venue last season! Injured Honda HRC rider Tim Gajser, second overall here to the eventual Champion Jorge Prado in 2024, is still third in the 2025 series. Fantic Factory Racing MXGP’s Glenn Coldenhoff and Gajser’s teammate Ruben Fernandez, as well as Maxime Renaux of the Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP team, are all poised to move past the absent Slovenian this weekend.
Laengenfelder will certainly have stiff competition at the German circuit, as fellow Red Bull KTM Factory Racing pilot Andrea Adamo also leapfrogged the reigning Champion Kay de Wolf at Ernée after a terrible GP for the Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing star. Adamo is only 11 points behind the home favourite, with De Wolf now 14 points further back, and with question marks over his physical status after a painful crash on Saturday in France. Behind them, the chasing pair of De Wolf’s teammate Liam Everts and Thibault Benistant of the Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2 squad have both won Grands Prix here and will be looking to repeat the feat to get back in the title fight!
For the twelfth time at this venue, the Women’s Motocross World Championship will be blasting around the Talkessel, the site of the first ever Women’s Motocross World Cup event, and round three of the 2025 series has many contenders with great records at the German circuit. Last year saw an emotional overall win for home heroine Larissa Papenmeier, although she currently sits in seventh place in the 2025 Championship for SYE Racing Team 423. Spanish star Daniela Guillén won the opening race last year, and she is fourth this season for RFME Spain National Team GASGAS. Lynn Valk, lining up for Van Venrooy KTM Racing this year, is joint second with FontaMX Racing’s Kiara Fontanesi, who last time out in Spain took her first overall victory since 2021. They are all chasing the De Baets Yamaha star and defending World Champion Lotte van Drunen, who has a slender 8-point buffer at the top!
The EMX125 Presented by FMF Racing series fires into the second half of its campaign with its eighth round this weekend. In France there was a massive turnaround at the top of the standings as Racestore KTM Factory Juniors rider Nicolò Alvisi took both wins, while his teammate Áron Katona suffered a zero-point weekend to lose the red plate, leaving him 25 points behind the Italian. Mano Faure also jumped up a position at his home round to lie third for Yamaha Europe EMX125.
Last year’s event saw one of the most enthusiastic crowds of the season make a lot of noise for their riders, and with a Championship leader to get behind, the 2025 event promises to be even more boisterous!
The MXGP of France saw an emotional home victory for Romain Febvre, but over the weekend he actually lost two points to Lucas Coenen after the young Belgian won Saturday’s Qualifying Race. The red plate holder took the GP victory at Teutschenthal ten years ago, during his title season of 2015, with a 1-2 scorecard, but has only ever been on the podium on one more occasion, in 2021 with 4-2 finishes for third overall. Last season saw him pull off the circuit on Sunday after taking third on Saturday but tweaking his injured thumb in the first GP race.
Coenen, meanwhile, has a bit of history with the Talkessel circuit, although he never raced here in the EMX Championships. He nearly took his first overall GP victory here in 2023 with a dominant race one performance being spoiled by a broken chain late in race two! In 2024 he took a perfect 1-1 score on Sunday, which lifted him above Laengenfelder to second in the MX2 World Championship. Expect the hot rookie to be just as strong on the 450cc machine.
Coldenhoff has only once stood on the podium here despite many years of trying, but his second overall in 2023 was with a 4-2 card behind Jorge Prado, who has won here four times in total, and in each of the last two years in MXGP. The best of the active riders here this weekend is Jeffrey Herlings, who won both races in 2014 and 2016 in MX2, plus another 1-1 in 2018. He has a dubious relationship with the German GP, however, having picked up the injury that ended his 2023 title campaign here, as well as famously suffering a collision with Prado over the finish line in 2021. He was third overall behind Prado and Gajser here last season, and looks to be improving week-by-week for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing.
Fernandez got on the podium here in 2023 with third overall, and he is only ten points behind Coldenhoff in the Championship standings, looking to get into the top three by the end of the weekend. Just three behind the Spaniard, however, is Maxime Renaux, who took a GP victory here in his MX2 title-winning campaign of 2021, and is also fighting his way back to full fitness.
Seventh in the Championship is Coldenhoff’s Fantic Factory Racing MXGP teammate Andrea Bonacorsi, who took a race win here in the 2022 EMX250 round, while ninth in the series after enjoying his second podium in France for the Aruba.it Ducati Factory MX Team is Jeremy Seewer, winner here in MX2 back in 2017!
The top German in MXGP is Tom Koch, currently 23rd in his first year with MRT Racing Team Beta, and he’ll be hunting for a top ten finish, as will SixtySeven Husqvarna Racing rider Mark Scheu.
The MXGP elite should give us a tough battle at the top, and seeing these seasoned warriors wrestle their bikes around the Talkessel is always a treat!
MXGP – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Romain Febvre (FRA, KAW), 441 Points; 2. Lucas Coenen (BEL, KTM), 394 Points; 3. Tim Gajser (SLO, HON), 305 Points; 4. Glenn Coldenhoff (NED, FAN), 302 Pts; 5. Ruben Fernandez (ESP, HON), 292 Pts; 6. Maxime Renaux (FRA, YAM), 289 Points; 7. Andrea Bonacorsi (ITA, FAN), 253 Points; 8. Calvin Vlaanderen (NED, YAM), 219 Pts; 9. Jeremy Seewer (SUI, DUC), 219 Pts; 10. Kevin Horgmo (NOR, HON), 204 Pts.
.jpg)
Main Photo: MXGP Start Teutschenthal 2024
Bottom Photos: 1. Tom Koch ; 2. Romain Febvre
Just as reigning MX2 World Champion Kay de Wolf looked to be pulling away in the 2025 series with his performance in Spain, the French GP turned into a nightmare for the Dutchman with just a 19-point haul from the weekend, compared to the 59 of Simon Laengenfelder!
This weekend will see an ocean of support for the German on his home ground, and as much as anything else will tell us how well he can handle the pressure of all that expectation from a nation with no World Champion for 13 years. His recent history here has been solid if not great, with third in both races behind Lucas Coenen and De Wolf last year, while injury kept him out of things in 2023. He was fifth overall in 2022 and seventh in 2021.
For his part, Andrea Adamo has almost been in better form than in his 2023 title-winning year, already taking three GP wins compared to just two in that season and none last year! He was second overall at Teutschenthal in 2023 and fourth last season, but his speed in France gives notice that he will be out to spoil the German party!
De Wolf, meanwhile, finished second overall here last season, having finished 11th the previous two years and sixth back in 2021. The big question is how bashed up he is after multiple crashes in France, will he be back to 100% or fighting through the pain barrier? His Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing teammate Liam Everts won his first ever GP here in 2023, but was a detuned seventh last season. He had a quiet French GP and is clearly looking for a big result to re-ignite his title challenge.
Fifth in the Championship is Thibault Benistant, winner here in 2022 who has been inconsistent in 2025, showing flashes of brilliance but also some very quiet races. His position is under threat as Sacha Coenen is only three points behind him for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, and on a run of form with back-to-back podium finishes in the last two GPs! He also won an EMX125 race here in 2021.
A bunch of MX2 riders will look to repeat some EMX success around the Talkessel, such as 2024 EMX250 winner and Kawasaki Racing Team MX2 competitor Mathis Valin, who also won an EMX125 race in 2023! Valerio Lata won the first EMX250 race here last year, and the Honda HRC pilot is only one point behind his teammate Ferruccio Zanchi as the pair run eighth and ninth in the series, behind Monster Energy Triumph Racing’s Camden McLellan.
Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2 rider Karlis Reisulis won an EMX125 race here in 2022, and he will be joined for the first time in MX2 by his brother, the 2023 overall EMX125 winner, and current EMX250 red plate holder, Janis Reisulis of the Team VHR VRT Yamaha Official EMX250 squad! His teammate Ivano van Erp, who also won an EMX125 round here overall in 2021, is one of several other EMX250 riders who will sample the MX2 experience this weekend!
Laengenfelder is the only German to have scored points in MX2 this year so far, but that’s all the excuse his fans will need to raise the metaphorical roof of the Talkessel circuit, and this year’s Liqui Moly MXGP of Germany is bound to be another classic around the iconic eastern German slopes!
MX2 – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Simon Laengenfelder (GER, KTM), 424 Points; 2. Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), 413 Pts; 3. Kay de Wolf (NED, HUS), 399 Points; 4. Liam Everts (BEL, HUS), 343 Pts; 5. Thibault Benistant (FRA, YAM), 308 Pts; 6. Sacha Coenen (BEL, KTM), 305 Pts; 7. Camden McLellan (RSA, TRI), 265 Pts; 8. Ferruccio Zanchi (ITA, HON), 220 Pts; 9. Valerio Lata (ITA, HON), 219 Pts; 10. Cas Valk (NED, KTM), 217 Pts.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Top Photo: MX2 Start Teutschenthal 2024
Bottom Photos: 1. Simon Laengenfelder ; 2. Valerio Lata
All the photos from the Liqui Moly MXGP of Germany will be available HERE.
You can find the complete results HERE.
TIMETABLE
SATURDAY: 07:30 EMX125 Group1 Free Practice, 08:00 EMX125 Group 2 Free Practice, 08:30 MXE Time Practice, 08:50 WMX Free Practice, 09:20 EMX125 Group 1 Qualifying Practice, 09:55 EMX125 Group 2 Qualifying Practice, 10:30 MX2 Free Practice, 11:00 MXGP OAT Free Practice, 11:45 WMX Qualifying Practice, 12:20 MXGP Wildcard Free/Qualifying Practice, 13:20 MXE Race 1, 13:40 MX2 Time Practice, 14:15 MXGP Time Practice, 15:00 WMX Race 1, 15:45 EMX125 Race 1, 16:35 MX2 Qualifying Race, 17:25 MXGP Qualifying Race.
SUNDAY: 09:45 WMX Race 2, 10:25 MX2 Warm-up, 10:45 MXGP Warm-up, 11:30 EMX125 Race 2, 12:20 MXE Race 2, 13:15 MX2 Race 1, 14:15 MXGP Race 1, 16:10 MX2 Race 2, 17:10 MXGP Race 2.
LINKS
