For the first time in nearly two full months, the MXGP elite will need their full range of sand riding skills as the notoriously deep Stedelijk Motocrossterrain Lommel circuit hosts round 14 of the 2026 FIM Motocross World Championships for the MXGP of Flanders, the only round this year within Belgium, the most successful nation in Motocross Grand Prix history!
This will be the 24th GP event held here since 1990, not counting two historic Nations events in 1981 and 2012, on what is now one of the most heavily-used test venues within the European centre of the sport. Many teams are based nearby, including some whose workshops literally border the circuit fences! Despite the familiarity with this venue, everybody knows that it never digs out deeper than on Grand Prix weekend!
Jeffrey Herlings is the joint most successful rider around Lommel with four GP victories, and he will be hoping to break the tie with Jorge Prado this weekend! He has regained the red plate in the MXGP World Championship for Honda HRC Petronas after scoring his seventh GP win of the season last weekend at Loket, and looks to be in fine form with a 49-point lead over Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Lucas Coenen, whose fitness for his home GP, which he won last year, is in doubt at the time of writing.
Romain Febvre, who battled hard with Coenen for a race win here last year for Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP, is only 25 points behind the Belgian and keen to move ahead of him in the standings. There are seven, or maybe eight, former GP winners at this venue lining up in the stellar MXGP category this weekend!
In MX2, Spaniard Guillem Farres might have had his Sunday race win streak halted at seven last weekend, but he still has a four-GP streak going in terms of overall victories. The Triumph Racing Factory Team machine will continue to wear the Red Plate, but his prime chasers will be keen to test his sand skills in a class which contains no former Lommel GP winners! Sacha Coenen fought onto the podium last year, and the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing flyer will be trying to hack down Farres’ 33-point margin at the top.
Farres’ Triumph Racing Factory Team teammate Camden McLellan is known to have serious sand prowess, and he has just taken third in the series by a single point from reigning World Champion Simon Längenfelder, so the South African could almost be considered the favourite for this weekend!
The EMX250 European Championship returns from a one-month break this weekend for its ninth round of 12, and the big news is that BUD Racing Kawasaki’s series leader Francisco Garcia is set to miss this round with a small injury picked up in training! He has a 104-point advantage over his teammate Jake Cannon, while Dane Nikolaj Skovbjerg is another 17 behind for Team SixtySeven Husqvarna Racing. The lead Belgian in the standings is Jarne Bervoets, son of former Lommel GP winner Marnicq, and after an EMX125 victory here last year, the Team VHR Yamaha Official rider will be hoping for a similar result in 2026!
A one-round European Championship will also be decided at “Lommelwood” this weekend, as the EMX Open class welcomes a pack full of eager 450cc riders to contend for an EMX title, with the headline-grabbing news that former GP winner Ken de Dycker is set to race on a private KTM, but the title could instead be disputed by former GP regular Nicholas Lapucci on the Millionaire Racing Team Honda Red Moto squad, along with William Voxen Kleeman from Denmark, Germany’s Peter Koenig, and last year’s fourth-place finisher Albin Gerhardsson from Sweden. Just getting into the race with 50 entrants lining up will be an achievement!
Lommel is the ultimate circuit for seeing the sublime skill of the sand masters ply their trade in some of the softest, most challenging conditions known to man! With an amazing range of classic machines also on display to celebrate 30 years of the Luongo family’s involvement in World Championship Motocross, this weekend is a major attraction for fans across the globe! Not one to be missed!
.jpg)
Lucas Coenen
The first win at Lommel for 2026 MXGP points leader Jeffrey Herlings came 15 years ago, in 2011, and he even won the MX2 class at the 2012 Motocross of Nations here, lapping most of his opposition! MXGP wins in 2017, ’18, and ’24 followed, but amazingly “The Bullet” has only raced eight GPs here over the years, half as many as Romain Febvre’s tally of 16, due to the number of injuries the Dutchman has had to contend with in that time. He will certainly line-up as the favourite to take what would be an incredible 120th career GP victory.
If Lucas Coenen is not able to line up, at a place where he first lit up the EMX250 class with a 1-1 in 2022, then Romain Febvre needs just 26 points over the weekend to overhaul the teenager in the Championship. The 2021 and 2023 MXGP of Flanders winner will simply be looking to claim his first GP triumph of the year in his last appearance here in green.
Fourth in the series is Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP’s Tim Gajser, who has won three GPs at this venue, albeit the most recent was in 2020, part of a triple-header that was held here in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic. Depending on how long his friend Lucas Coenen is away, a bronze medal may still be within the Slovenian’s grasp in what has been a very tough year.
Honda HRC Petronas rider Ruben Fernandez lifted himself into fifth in the World Championship last weekend, although only by three points from the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing ace Andrea Adamo. Neither of the pair can be said to be a sand expert, although the Italian did take second in last year’s MX2 Qualifying Race. A podium for either rider would be a massive result here, as it would for Maxime Renaux, who dropped to seventh in the standings last weekend for Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP. The Frenchman has climbed the “Lommelwood” podium before, in his MX2 title season of 2021, so will be looking to at least bridge the six-point gap up to Fernandez to re-take his top five status.
Two former MX2 World Champions who have each claimed two GP victories at Lommel, Honda HRC Petronas man Tom Vialle, and Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing’s Kay de Wolf, sit in lonely eighth and ninth positions in the 2026 points tables, and will be out for race wins and podium results with no Championship pressure on them this weekend. Kay in particular, with the team workshops a stone’s throw away, will be very keen to impress in his first MXGP appearance in the Benelux region.
Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP’s Pauls Jonass and Red Bull Ducati Factory MX Team rider Calvin Vlaanderen are the next two in the Championship, but both are questionable for this weekend. Calvin has podium results in his career at Lommel and will be doing all he can to line up.
Fomer Lommel GP winners also in the mix include Jago Geerts, who has won three times on home sand here in MX2, and is starting to regularly feature in the top ten this year for MRT Racing Team Beta. Ben Watson also took an MX2 victory here in 2020, and will be looking to finish in the MXGP top ten overall for the fourth time at this track as he lines up for Dirt Store Triumph Racing. Fantic Factory Racing MXGP’s Brent van Doninck is just three points behind Geerts in the series, and with the team workshop just over the fence, will be a popular figure if he can repeat his excellent start from Czechia last weekend.
There are few more awesome spectacles than seeing 450cc machines being wrestled through the deep sand of Lommel by the MXGP elite, so expect a massive crowd for this weekend!
1. Jago Geerts; 2. Brent von Doninck
MXGP – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Jeffrey Herlings (NED, HON), 615 points; 2. Lucas Coenen (BEL, KTM), 566 p.; 3. Romain Febvre (FRA, KAW), 541 p.; 4. Tim Gajser (SLO, YAM), 489 p.; 5. Ruben Fernandez (ESP, HON), 414 p.; 6. Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), 411 p.; 7. Maxime Renaux (FRA, YAM), 408 p.; 8. Tom Vialle (FRA, HON), 367 p.; 9. Kay de Wolf (NED, HUS), 292 p.; 10. Pauls Jonass (LAT, KAW), 273 p.
MX2 Start Lommel 2025
Perhaps the biggest question for MX2 is whether or not Guillem Farres can keep his winning streak going through the deep sand of the Stedelijk venue, having yet to win in this kind of terrain. The good news for the factory Triumph man is that his 33-point lead gives him some buffer over a still-recovering Sacha Coenen, who would otherwise be a strong favourite on home ground. Farres took ninth overall here last year after a DNF in the Qualifying Race hurt his gate pick badly.
Coenen himself will have had continued treatment to help him prepare for his third GP in as many weekends, and for sure the following weekend off will be a welcome one! The young Belgian has a 37-point buffer over Camden McLellan, and he might need most of that cushion as the South African gave Kay de Wolf a close run here last year, taking second overall.
Simon Längenfelder’s crash last weekend dropped him to fourth behind McLellan, by a single point, and although the German is not the strongest in sand, he is the only one lining up in MX2 with a GP race win to his name at this track, having held off a De Wolf fightback to win race two in 2024! The Red Bull KTM Factory Racing pilot will be hoping that experience can pull him back into the title fight this weekend!
Liam Everts might have added to the attendance in Flanders with his first race win of the year last weekend, and the Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing rider will be looking for his first podium on home ground after finishing fourth here in his last two appearances, and missing last year’s GP! That would be a welcome present for his 22nd birthday the week after the race.
The Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2 teammates and brothers Janis and Karlis Reisulis are next up in the table, although the younger sibling Janis has a 100-point margin over seventh, despite Karlis taking his first career podium last weekend. Janis has two EMX125 victories to his name at Lommel, and could be a nice outside bet for the podium, if not the win!
Mathis Valin is eight in the Championship, and is still questionable for Kawasaki Racing Team MX2 at the track where he has scored two EMX podium results. He was behind 2024 EMX250 winner Valerio Lata in the most recent of those, and the Honda HRC Petronas lone wolf will be hoping to bridge the 20-point gap to the Frenchman in the points table.
Julius Mikula continues to impress as the top non-factory rider in MX2 for Osička Racing KTM. The young Czech rider has won an EMX125 race here before, so he can tackle the sand, and for sure he’ll be out to continue his momentum with a good result in his last GP as a teenager!
Dutch sand flies Kay Karssemakers, for Dixon Racing Team Kawasaki, and Jens Walvoort for SB Racing KTM, could well be strong contenders in the top ten, with lots of support from over the nearby Netherlands border!
Be sure to tune in for the MXGP of Flanders this weekend, as one of the toughest tracks of the season always throws up some intense racing action! See you out there!
.jpg)
1. Sacha Coenen; 2. Liam Everts
MX2 – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Guillem Farres (ESP, TRI), 618 points; 2. Sacha Coenen (BEL, KTM), 585 p.; 3. Camden Mc Lellan (RSA, TRI), 548 p.; 4. Simon Längenfelder (GER, KTM), 547 p.; 5. Liam Everts (BEL, HUS), 520 p.; 6. Janis Martins Reisulis (LAT, YAM), 476 p.; 7. Karlis Alberts Reisulis (LAT, YAM), 376 p.; 8. Mathis Valin (FRA, KAW), 352 p.; 9. Valerio Lata (ITA, HON), 332 p.; 10. Julius Mikula (CZE, KTM), 283 p.
All the photos from the MXGP of Flanders will be available HERE.
You can find the complete results HERE.
TIMETABLE
FRIDAY: 16:00 Blåkläder Start Practice MXGP, 16:35 Blåkläder Start Practice MX2
SATURDAY: 09:10 EMX Open Free Practice, 09:40 EMX250 Free Practice, 10:30 MX2 Free Practice, 11:00 MXGP Free Practice, 12:20 EMX Open Qualifying Practice, 13:00 EMX250 Qualifying Practice, 13:40 MX2 Time Practice, 14:15 MXGP Time Practice, 15:00 EMX Open Race 1, 15:45 EMX250 Race 1, 16:35 MX2 Qualifying Race, 17:25 MXGP Qualifying Race.
SUNDAY: 09:40 EMX Open 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.
LINKS
