I still find it amazing at times when some people say you can’t count the amount of GP wins Jeffrey Herlings has in the MX2 class, because it wasn't the premier class. Because he rode seven years in the MX2 class, two of which he got badly injured, and scored three world championships and 62 GP victories, it doesn’t mean those victories don’t count.

I don’t see people saying six time 250cc World champion Joel Roberts doesn’t deserve to have his 50 GP wins, because it was in the 250cc class, of Torsten Hallman with his 37 GP wins (also in the 250 class), when the 500cc class was the premier class in that era. Or maybe saying that Alessio Chiodi with his 26 GP wins, only in the 125cc class are not as important, or because Gaston Rahier won 30 GPs in the 125cc and 250cc, that they also don’t really count.

Of course, it is complete and utter nonsense, and anyone who thinks that ANY GP victory isn’t worth its weight in gold, well, just isn’t really a motocross fan.

Herlings won his 62 GPs in the MX2 class from the age of 15 until he was 21, and his 29 GP victories in MXGP (so far) have come in four seasons, two of which he was injured (2019 and 2020) for most of the seasons.

He could easily finish with more than 20 GP wins in the premier class in 24 months, and I can tell you, NO rider in the history of the sport has done that, at the age of 23. With 11 Grand Prix’s to go, you have to imagine on current form another seven victories is more than possible this year.

In the 2005 and 2006 seasons, and in his early 30’s Stefan Everts scored 24 GP wins, and in 2012 and 2013, at the age of 25 years old (2013 he was 16 years old), Antonio Cairoli won 20 GPs in the premier class. Of course, in those two season of the legends, they both won world championships, while Herlings failed to claim a world title last year, and still hasn’t this year.

Cairoli won eight GPs in his second year in the premier class, Herlings in less than half a season already had seven. The most Cairoli won in a season in the MXGP class was 11 in 2012 (a 16 GP season), while the most Everts won in a season was 15 in 2006, of course in 2006, there were only 16 GPs organized. Herlings won 17 in 2018.

So this season, when Herlings takes for his 90st Grand Prix victories into the 2021 MXGP championship and closes up on the 101 GP wins by Everts, lets stop the BS and give the kid the credit he deserves for every single GP he has won, because when he carries his stats past 101, we should celebrate just like we did when Stefan Everts passed the record of Joel Robert, two riders with a lot of GP wins NOT in the premier class.