Looking at the performances of the two main men in the MXGP championship, it isn’t difficult to see how close Romain Febvre and Lucas Coenen are in GP and moto wins. Just the odd poor result from Romain Febvre, where he finished with just 32 points from round two in Spain, and stunningly, his next worst result was 41 points in Arnhem a few weeks ago.

In that 32-point score in Spain and round two, he finished with eight in the Saturday qualifier, then 7-5 scores on Sunday. In Arnhem, Febvre went 3-8 on Sunday and third on Saturday. The Frenchman has won 12 motos. Amazingly, he didn’t win a Grand Prix until round eight at Lugo, Spain and he followed up with GP wins in France and Sweden.

Coenen, who started the season off the pace, with just 27 points from round one, 30 points from rounds two, 34pts and 35 points from rounds four and five. The difference with Coenen, when he is good, he is very good and he has won 20 motos and taken GP victories in Switzerland at round six, then followed that up with 1-1-1 in Portugal, and 60 points. The Belgian then scored maximum points again in Finland 2-1-2 to win in Loket, 1-2-1 to win in Lommel, before stuffing up again in Sweden with 6-7-12, but came back to finish second to Herlings in Arnhem with 4-2-2 and finally, scores 1-1-3 in Turkey last weekend.

Now, that 26-point lead by Febvre is going to be hard to catch, no matter how good Coenen races in China and Australia, because Febvre has been rock solid in 2025. In the past the Kawasaki rider might have had a run of crashes and minor injuries to cruel his title hopes, but not this year.

Sure, we might have a situation where Coenen wins a moto and Herlings and Gajser can finish between the Belgian and the Frenchman, but even if that was to happen in the final six motos, and Coenen picked up 60 points in both fly away rounds, and Febvre were to score 43 points, the difference in points would be a 34 point advantage to Coenen, so an 8 point championship win to the teenagers, but the chances of Coenen winning every single moto and Febvre getting beaten by both Herlings and Gajser in all six motos, well, its slim.

I think we all want to see a title fight going to the final round, with not many points between them, but for that to happen, we are nearly going to need the Frenchman to make a big mistake and the biggest mistake he has made in the last few months was a 8th place in the sand in Arnhem.

On hard pack, which is what China and Australia will be, the worst Febvre has done in the last few months was a fifth place at Loket. Nobody wants to see a rider crash, or even worse, get hurt, but that might be all Coenen has left to bridge the gap to Febvre.

The talented Belgian has mentioned of maybe having to be more aggressive to Febvre and cause a big mistake, but going by Coenen, he isn’t a dirty rider, however, he did mention to us after a near clash with Febvre in Lommel, that he has every right to bang bars with his rival and nearly did it last weekend in Turkey, but couldn’t get close enough to do it in that second moto.

So, whatever happens in China and Australia, lets hope the two brilliant athletes can produce some good, hard, clean racing and whoever is crowned in Darwin in a couple of weeks’ time, will be a worthy MXGP champion.

Bavo Swijgers image