The pace picks up for the 2026 FIM Motocross World Championships as the riders and teams head to the classic Talkessel circuit at Teutschenthal for the Liqui Moly MXGP of Germany, the 29th such event to be run at this historic circuit, and with a native reigning Champion for the crowd to cheer on for the very first time here in the men’s classes, the atmosphere is guaranteed to be through the roof!
The first GP winner here was the mighty Joel Robert back in 1971, then we jump forward to 1993, when the man named after Robert, Joel Smets, won a 500cc round on a Husaberg! The most successful rider here is Antonio Cairoli, having taken five victories in total. Of the active riders competing this weekend, both Jeffrey Herlings and Tim Gajser have taken four victories each here, while the Dutchman won another GP in this country back in 2013, at the Lausitzring circuit.
The MXGP World Championship is finely poised between the two riders who fought it out here last year for overall honours. Red Bull KTM Factory Racing lead the way with their teenage prodigy Lucas Coenen, but he holds just a two-point lead over the Honda HRC Petronas new boy Jeffrey Herlings, who passed the Belgian in race two here last year for the GP win! Freshly up to third in the series for Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP is reigning World Champion Romain Febvre, who took his sole win here back in 2015, his first title season!
For the second consecutive year, Simon Längenfelder wears the red plate for MX2 into his home GP, and this time it has the #1 of the reigning World Champion on display! Fellow Red Bull KTM Factory Racing rider Sacha Coenen is still chasing him in the Championship, now eight points behind after neither man climbed the podium last time out in France. Guillem Farres took his first career Grand Prix victory at Lacapelle Marival for the Triumph Factory Racing Team, and halved the gap between himself and Längenfelder to return to the site of his first ever GP race win just 20 down on the home hero!
The Talkessel circuit has held more rounds of the FIM Women’s Motocross World Championship than any other circuit, and after 12 competitions at this venue there will be a celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Championship’s world status. The points chase sits level coming into the second round of the 2026 series, with RFME Spain National Team heroine Daniela Guillen level with the MX-Fonta Racing veteran Kiara Fontanesi at the top, and the Italian has won twice at the Talkessel, including last year’s event! April Franzoni delighted her home French crowd with a podium result in round one for Team Honda Motoblouz SR Motul, and she is 11 points off the leader. A special mention must go to original German WMX pioneer Larissa Papenmeier, who starts the 100th WMX round of her career this weekend for the SYE Racing Team 423 Honda squad, and with the women’s record of three victories here to her name, she might still be an outside bet for a podium result!
The EMX250 European Championship returns for its fifth round after a six-week absence, but Championship leader Francisco Garcia enjoyed a top ten result in his MX2 debut last weekend, and the Spaniard holds a solid 41-point margin at the top for Venum BUD Racing Kawasaki. Second is Danish flyer Nicolai Skovbjerg for Mx-Handel Racing Husqvarna, with Garcia’s teammate Jake Cannon just four points further back in third. The sole German points scorer so far is Leon Rudolph of the KTM Sarholz Racing Team, and he will be keen to get the chainless chainsaws rattling with a good result in the all-action EMX pack!
The short hop across the border from France will give the riders who struggled there a chance for redemption, and others to build the momentum as round seven of the FIM Motocross World Championships roars into life!
Lucas Coenen
The “Battle of the Ages” continued in France with a slight advantage going the way of Jeffrey Herlings thanks to his Saturday race win, while Lucas Coenen could only manage third place, that two-point difference being the only one between them after they shared the top two positions across Sunday’s races. The red plate holder narrowly lost out to “The Bullet” in last year’s GP here, after taking the Qualifying race win on Saturday. He scored a dominant 1-1 GP win in the MX2 class in 2024, and was denied the same a year prior with a late mechanical issue. He even climbed the podium back in 2021 whilst in the EMX125 class!
Herlings has had a mixed relationship with Teutschenthal over the years, with injuries and finish-line collisions all in his memory, and last year’s victory was his first since 2018 when he swept the weekend. With perfect weekends in MX2 from 2014 & ’16, you can never discount him. In contrast, Romain Febvre has only climbed the podium three times in the last ten years, since that win in 2015. Third last year was all he could do, and with a 55-point gap between himself and the points leader, he will need to start clawing that back if he is to successfully defend his title.
Tim Gajser now sits fourth in points for Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP, and he has finished off the podium only once in the premier class, with three straight victories from 2019-2022 – we didn’t come here in 2020. The fight for third is close as Gajser is only eight points back from Febvre, while another Frenchman, Tom Vialle, will be looking to bounce back from a disastrous home GP which dropped him to fifth in points for Honda HRC Petronas, four behind the Slovenian! Vialle won two races and one Qualifying Race here in MX2, but has never bettered his two second place overall results from 2019 & ’21.
Just a point behind Vialle is his other countryman Maxime Renaux, who won here in 2021 on his way to the MX2 title, but has been unable to compete on Sunday since then until last year, when he took a fine fourth overall. With good starts, the Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP man could be a force.
Kay de Wolf’s return from a pre-season injury has gathered pace, has he now sits seventh in points for Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing. MX2 podium results in the last two years have been his best results at the Talkessel, and he now has a 31-point bridge to cross to catch Renaux. Ruben Fernandez is now eighth for Honda HRC Petronas, and he scored an MXGP podium here in 2023, but crashed out of last year’s GP after a fifth on Saturday.
There were no such issues for Andrea Adamo, who took his final MX2 GP win here for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, taking the red plate away for the last time. He has finished in the top three on Saturday for each of the last three years, and will be feeling confident of continuing that run from ninth in the series.
Calvin Vlaanderen is still performing well for the Red Bull Ducati Factory MX Team, holding down tenth in the standings, although Jeremy Seewer has now left the team, meaning that this year’s Liqui Moly MXGP of Germany will be the first round without the Swiss veteran since the final GP of 2013!
Another former winner here is Thibault Benistant, and of course all of our thoughts are with the Team Honda Motoblouz SR Motul man, at the site of his first career GP victory in 2022, as he tries to recover from his injuries from last weekend. He will be missed and we all wish him the very best in what he calls “this new battle”.
The top German points scorer in MXGP this year has been Tom Koch of the KTM Sarholz Racing Team, and his fast-starting teammate Noah Ludwig could also spring a surprise for the home fans!
The MXGP class should provide another fascinating weekend of racing at the Talkessel circuit, with travelling fans from all over Europe ready to get behind their favourites!
MXGP – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Lucas Coenen (BEL, KTM), 286 points; 2. Jeffrey Herlings (NED, HON), 284 p.; 3. Romain Febvre (FRA, KAW), 231 p.; 4. Tim Gajser (SLO, YAM), 223 p.; 5. Tom Vialle (FRA, HON), 219 p.; 6. Maxime Renaux (FRA, YAM), 218 p.; 7. Kay de Wolf (NED, HUS), 187 p.; 8. Ruben Fernandez (ESP, HON), 177 p.; 9. Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), 171 p.; 10. Calvin Vlaanderen (NED, DUC), 126 p.;
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1. Jeffrey Herlings; 2. Kay de Wolf
MX2 Start Teutschenthal 2025
The MX2 World Championship took another twist in France, as the factory Red Bull KTM riders at the top of the points table didn’t see the podium at all, and it’s the Triumph Racing Factory Team that scored a 1-2 with first-time GP winner Guillem Farres and South African star Camden McLellan enjoying the heat! They are currently third and fifth in the standings, but much closer than they were to the top!
Defending MX2 World Champion Simon Längenfelder has never fared too well at his home GP, with a best of fourth place in Qualifying Races, the second of which came last year, and third place being his best Sunday race finish, which he equalled in the second race in 2025. His single podium here came in ‘24, but coming in as World Champion could well give him the edge as the crowd will be massively behind him. His main rival Sacha Coenen comes in with an even worse record at this track, with a best of eighth overall last year, although that was mainly down to a race two crash after finishing second in both the Qualifying Race and in race one on Sunday. Both men need a bounce-back and should come out swinging this weekend.
Farres has great memories of his first ever GP race win here last year in the mud, although he didn’t actually know it when he crossed the line! Behind the Spaniard, and fourth in points, is Liam Everts, who scored his first ever GP win here in 2023. He hasn’t shown such good form here in the years since, and with 36 points to catch up to the leader, he will really need to find that old speed again for Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing. McLellan’s seventh overall last year was his best result at Teutschenthal, but he has been working hard to build his speed on hardpack.
The previous two years’ EMX250 Champions run sixth and seventh in the points, with Mathis Valin taking to the podium in each of the last two rounds for Kawasaki Racing Team MX2, and he would dearly love to match his EMX250 win from 2024! Janis Reisulis, two points further back for Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2, took an EMX125 victory in 2023, and you feel that the podium is beckoning for the young Latvian as he looks forward to his home round the following weekend
Janis’ teammate and brother Karlis Reisulis is eighth in the series, but hasn’t had a great result here since a race win in EMX125 four years ago, while Valerio Lata will be seeking a return to last year’s Qualifying Race winning form, the only one of his career so far, as he tries to advance from ninth in the standings for Honda HRC Petronas.
Julius Mikula has finally got into the top ten in the series for the Ošicka KTM Racing team, and the top privateer in the Championship could continue to embarrass the factory boys with his hardpack skills around the Talkessel!
After last week’s French raucousness, the chainsaw-wielding German fans have got some way to go to match that incredible atmosphere, but they will no doubt make an impression this weekend as they urge on their reigning World Champion to further glory!
The Liqui Moly MXGP of Germany stands ready to entertain you from the bowels of central Europe, so be sure to catch every bit of action from the classic valley of Teutschenthal!
MX2 – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Simon Längenfelder (GER, KTM), 281 points; 2. Sacha Coenen (BEL, KTM), 273 p.; 3. Guillem Farres (ESP, TRI), 261 p.; 4. Liam Everts (BEL, HUS), 245 p.; 5. Camden Mc Lellan (RSA, TRI), 233 p.; 6. Mathis Valin (FRA, KAW), 211 p.; 7. Janis Martins Reisulis (LAT, YAM), 209 p.; 8. Karlis Alberts Reisulis (LAT, YAM), 167 p.; 9. Valerio Lata (ITA, HON), 156 p.; 10. Julius Mikula (CZE, KTM), 130 p.;
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1. Simon Längenfelder; 2. Guillem Farres
All the photos from the Liqui Moly MXGP of Germany will be available HERE.
You can find the complete results HERE and on Sportity App (Password: MXGP2026)
TIMETABLE
SATURDAY:
07:45 EMX250 Group 1 Free Practice, 08:15 EMX250 Group 2 Free Practice, 08:45 WMX Free Practice, 09:10 EMX250 Group 1 Qualifying Practice, 09:50 EMX250 Group 2 Qualifying Practice, 10:30 MX2 Free Practice, 11:00 MXGP OAT Free Practice, 11:30 Onboard Camera (2 laps), 12:10 WMX Qualifying Practice, 12:45 MXGP Wildcard Free/Qualifying Practice, 13:40 MX2 Time Practice, 14:15 MXGP OAT Time Practice, 15:00 WMX Race 1, 15:45 EMX250 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 EMX250 Race 2, 13:15 MX2 Race 1, 14:15 MXGP Race 1, 16:10 MX2 Race 2, 17:10 MXGP Race 2.
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