April 25, 2010, it’s a long time ago, and in the 16 years that have followed, we have seen victory after victory. This coming Saturday marks 16 years since Jeffrey Herlings won his first ever Grand Prix, at the MXGP of The Netherlands, at the Valkenswaard circuit.

What is a little special, this coming weekend is also Kings Day in The Netherlands, where they celebrate the Dutch King. Fits nicely into the greatest GP winner of all time, our Dutch motocross King celebrating the 16th anniversary of his first win.

Ray Archer image

Last weekend, Herlings won his 114th Grand Prix, and while his 1-2 performance isn’t the best of his career, that opening moto win, well, it has to be up there as one of his best. At 31 years of age, and in the twilight of what has been an amusing and entertaining career, Jeffrey Herlings is still fast enough to not just win GPs, but also fast enough to win world titles.

It is no secret, since that day in the sand of the Eurocircuit in Holland, I became a fan of this five-time world champion. If you couldn’t see he was special that day, then you probably needed to go to Specsavers, because Herlings oozed everything that makes a legend.

The following years, he would grab GP victories like they were as easy as having breakfast, but in recent times, that has changed. Those damn injuries continued to stall his momentum and GP tally.

Two in 2010, five in 2011, nine in 2012, 16 in 2013, despite missing two rounds, 12 in 2014, again he missed four rounds, then four in 2015, seven more rounds missed due to injuries. In 2016, his final MX2 season, he was back at it, winning 15 GPs, but still, missing three rounds.

His MXGP rookie season he won six but started the year carrying injuries and five of his six wins came in the last six rounds. No surprise when he entered 2018 fit, that he would dominate, taking 17 wins and still missing a round. His other two results were 2-2.

This was when the damaged body really started taking a hit, missing nearly the complete season in 2019, but coming back to win the last two rounds. He missed 13 rounds in 2019, then missed 12 rounds in 2020, but still won four of the first six rounds.

He missed the complete 2022 season, came back in 2023 to win four GPs, but missed eight rounds. Despite a year of finishing every single round in 2024, his win tally was just four and many of us started to wonder if we would see the best of “The Bullet” again, but he did come back in 2025, miss five rounds, but he did score five GP wins.

In 2026, he started the season with that opening round 1-1 performance and of course, last weekend he added GP win number two to his tally, and that 114th of his career. What the rest of 2026 brings, we have no idea, as the MXGP class is so stacked and Lucas Coenen has shown such amazing speed, that it might be hard work for Herlins to add too many more, but going by the opening race in Trentino, we will be seeing some of the prime Dutchman in the coming months.

So, while we had the best Jeffrey Herlings around the end of his MX2 career and the start of his MXGP career, where in 38 wins in three years, since that sensational 2018 domination in MXGP, Herlings has won just 21 GP wins. Now, saying just is maybe a little over the top, as most riders would die to get 21 GP wins in seven years, but not “The Bullet”.

You get the feeling with the move to Honda and this Honda machine being seemingly the best bike on hard pack, as we saw throughout the weekend in Trentino, with all three HRC men super quick, I do have a feeling we might get a little Herlings run at some point in 2026.

There is no denying, Lucas Coenen still has the speed at circuit that suit him and the KTM, but it seems clear that KTM are more a sand bike and Honda the boss of the blue groove, of which we will see many rounds this year in the next round in Lacapelle Marival, then following up with dark pack in Teutschenthal, Montevarchi, Johanesburg, Foxhills, Loket, Afyonkarahisar and China.

Mind you, Coenen did dominate the competition in Switzerland on hard pack, so let’s not count him out winning a bunch of these rounds. While we always expected Herlings to be the king of the sand, for now, that seems to be Coenen, and he will get his shot at the sand in Kegums, Lommel and Arnhem.

For me, Agueda, Uddevalla and Australia are probably like neutral territory, as all three of those circuits offer not hard pack and not sand. What those rounds might come down to is what the riders themselves offer. In Australia last year, Coenen won the moto ahead of Herlings, while in Portugal Coenen went 1-1 to Herlings 10-7. In China it was Herlings going 1-1 and Coenen going 9-14.

What tally Herlings ends 2026, be it 120, 125 or 114, nobody knows, but what we do know, there is life in the old dog and his sensational appetite for victory is as strong as it was on April 25, 2010.

MXGP Statistics

GP wins 52 (44.8%)

Race wins 118 (43.1%)

Podiums 82 (70.7%)

Points 4,630pts

Average points per GP 40pts

Total Grand Prix 116 GPs

Years 2017 - 2026

MX2 Statistics

GP wins 61 (62.9%)

Race wins 162 (56.8%)

Podiums 80 (82.5%)

Points 4,233pts

Average points per GP 44pts

Total Grand Prix 97 GPs

Years 2010 - 2016