After a week’s break, the FIM Motocross World Championship fires into the first of its last three-week run, the MXGP of Sweden for round 15 at the Glimminge Motorstadion venue near Uddevalla on the south-western coast of the country.
Sweden was one of the original powerhouse nations of World Motocross, claiming eight of the first nine World Championships ever to be held, and only Belgium and France can boast more World Champions than the Nordic nation.
The Uddevalla circuit has one of the longest histories of any in the 2024 calendar, with the first World Championship Grand Prix being held there in 1958, won by home hero and future double World Champion Sten Lundin on a Swedish Monark machine! There have been 25 GPs at the venue over the years, with the record of 6 GP wins here being held jointly by the legends Stefan Everts and Antonio Cairoli.
From the current field of today’s riders, it’s Kawasaki Racing Team pilot Jeremy Seewer who has won the most here with three victories in total, including the last two events in MXGP, plus an MX2 win in 2017!
The MXGP class will see a continuation of the stellar three-way scrap for the title, as red plate holder Tim Gajser holds a 24-point advantage for Team HRC over Red Bull GASGAS Factory Racing’s Jorge Prado, while Jeffrey Herlings is only 14 points further back for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing after an incredible win at Lommel!
The MX2 class is getting more spaced out in the standings, with Kay de Wolf holding a 65-point lead over his Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing teammate Lucas Coenen, but the racing is still tough to predict, especially as last year’s winner Simon Laengenfelder is coming off a race win at Lommel for Red Bull GASGAS Factory Racing and is hungry for his first overall GP victory of 2024!
The EMX250 European Championships will again be in action in Sweden, and Bud Racing Kawasaki’s Mathis Valin still leads by 13 points ahead of Gabriel SS24 KTM teamster Cas Valk, with Valerio Lata just five points further back for Beddini GASGAS Factory Juniors! Sweden’s best hopes of success lie with August Frisk, who has been in the top ten several times this season.
The EMX125 Presented by FMF Racing European Championship series returns from a near two-month break for the first of a three-week run, With Fantic Factory Racing EMX125 star Noel Zanocz leading the Championship by 14 points over Gyan Doensen for Racestore KTM Factory Rookies. Freddie Bartlett and Sandro Sols will fly the flag for Sweden after several top ten results this year!
None of the big three who are fighting for the world title in 2024 have got particularly good records around the Uddevalla circuit. Jeremy Seewer has taken the overall victory in each of the last two seasons, and would dearly love to continue that winning streak! Before that, it was current Fantic Factory Racing star Glenn Coldenhoff who won overall in 2019, although Gajser did take the second race win that day.
Current red plate holder Gajser took the overall back in 2017 in MXGP, as well as in his MX2 title year of 2015, while Herlings has to look back to his dominant MX2 years for victories in 2013 and 2014. A broken chain here in 2017 put paid to his world title hopes in his first MXGP season, and he hasn’t raced here since!
This is one of the few circuits on the calendar where Jorge Prado hasn’t won a GP, although he did win individual races in 2017 and ’19 in MX2 and last season’s first outing. Kawasaki Racing Team’s Romain Febvre took a double victory in 2015, plus a race win in 2017, as well as finishing second overall last year.
Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP’s Calvin Vlaanderen is still fourth in the series, and he took an MX2 race win here in 2019, so he has good history here and is in good form despite a crash-ruined second race in Lommel. Sadly, his teammate Jago Geerts, MX2 winner here in 2022, will not be here after his return in Flanders did not go to plan.
JK Racing Yamaha rider Isak Gifting will be fit and is looking forward to his home GP after a frustrating sequence of races since Indonesia, while Alvin Ostlund will be looking for more points after scoring one at Lommel. The two Swedes are 17th and 19th in the Championship.
The lack of a clear form guide makes it difficult to guess who will come out on top in 2024, but with another big sand GP to come the week after, you can bet that Gajser will be particularly eager to get a result this weekend before they return to Herlings and Prado’s playground!
MXGP – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Tim Gajser (SLO, HON), 705 Points; 2. Jorge Prado (ESP, GAS), 681 Points; 3. Jeffrey Herlings (NED, KTM), 667 Pts; 4. Calvin Vlaanderen (NED, YAM), 507 Pts; 5. Jeremy Seewer (SUI, KAW), 479 Pts; 6. Glenn Coldenhoff (NED, FAN), 419 Pts; 7. Romain Febvre (FRA, KAW), 405 Points; 8. Kevin Horgmo (NOR, HON), 317 Pts; 9. Pauls Jonass (LAT, HON), 274 Pts; 10. Valentin Guillod (SUI, HON), 273 Pts.
The MX2 World Championship saw a huge momentum swing towards Kay de Wolf at the MXGP of Flanders, but as always this season, the result is never a foregone conclusion and his teammate Lucas Coenen will be going all-out to make sure that the fight is not over!
Neither of them have particularly fond memories of Uddevalla, although Lucas did win an EMX250 race here in 2022. Last year, he crashed spectacularly in qualifying, while De Wolf was out injured. Kay had a so-so 7-7 scorecard here in 2022.
Ater his surprise win in race two at Lommel, Simon Laengenfelder could have high hopes for a great result this weekend, after finishing on the podium in each of the last two years here, including last year’s overall victory. He has just 12 points between himself and Lucas Coenen for second in the series, and he is the only rider in MX2 this year to have won a GP in Sweden.
Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s reigning World Champion Andrea Adamo won race two last year to claim third overall, with his teammate Liam Everts taking second overall with 2-3 finishes. Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2 pilot Rick Elzinga scored his best race finish of the whole year with third in race one, and is on form after his best GP result yet at Lommel.
The top Swede in the series, Leopold Ambjörnson, had one of his best GPs yet at Lommel for Team Leoparden Racing, so will be keen to show his form on home ground, as will Young Motion Powered by Resa pilot Arvid Lüning, who scored top 15 in each race at Lommel for the first time this season.
MX2 – World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Kay de Wolf (NED, HUS), 683 Points; 2. Lucas Coenen (BEL, HUS), 618 Pts; 3. Simon Laengenfelder (GER, GAS), 606 Points; 4. Liam Everts (BEL, KTM), 556 Pts; 5. Mikkel Haarup (DEN, TRI), 465 Pts; 6. Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), 457 Pts; 7. Rick Elzinga (NED, YAM), 429 Pts; 8. Sacha Coenen (BEL, KTM), 391 Pts; 9. Oriol Oliver (ESP, KTM), 255 Pts; 10. Ferruccio Zanchi (ITA, HON), 254 Pts.
TIMETABLE
SATURDAY: 7:15 EMX125 Group 1 Free practice, 7:45 EMX125 Group 1 Free practice, 08:15 EMX250 Group 1 Free practice, 8:45 EMX250 Group 2 Free practice, 09:15 EMX125 Group 1 Qualifying practice, 09:55 EMX125 Group 2 Qualifying Practice, 10:30 MX2 Free Practice, 11:00 MXGP Free Practice, 12:20 EMX250 Group 1 Qualifying practice, 13:00 EMX250 Group 2 Qualifying practice, 13:40 MX2 Time Practice, 14:15 MXGP Time Practice, 15:00 EMX125 Race 1, 15:45 EMX250 Race 1, 16:35 MX2 RAM Qualifying Race, 17:25 MXGP RAM Qualifying Race.
SUNDAY: 09:45 EMX125 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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