Marcus Pereira de Freitas the HRC General Manager for MXGP must be on cloud nine as we head to Switzerland this weekend. With his riders, Jeffrey Herlings and Tom Vialle showing really consistent results in the opening two rounds of the 2026 MXGP championship, the Honda boys know that they will be fighting for GP wins and podiums for most of the season.

Last weekend Spanish Grand Prix saw Herlings go 2-2 for second overall, Vialle 5-6 for sixth overall and Ruben Fernandez 11th overall, and some serious struggled on home turf. With Switzerland this weekend, you just know that all three riders will be prepared to put in solid results, as all three are good hard pack riders.

Amazingly, both Herlings and Vialle have held the red plate and championship lead, but as competitive as 2026 is, that is now owned by Red Bull KTM factory rider, Lucas Coenen. No doubt, the Honda riders will want to wrestle that away from the Belgian teenager.

Spanish Podium

Pereira de Freitas: A new GP always makes things interesting, and I think they did a really good job with the track to create a challenge for everyone. It was definitely a rollercoaster for the team, but overall, there were a lot of things that we can be happy with from all the riders. We definitely can’t question all of their desire and effort that they put in, and there were some good results too. Hopefully Valerio can take this result and build upon it and really start to show his true speed. We know Ruben will do better when he is fully healthy, because even today he showed great speed. Tom and Jeffrey continue to impress and after two rounds they sit second and third in the championship so that is very positive. Switzerland looks like being a completely different experience, so we’ll be making sure to get our riders as prepared as possible.

Spanish Qualification

Pereira de Freitas: Tough day for three of our riders as Ruben, Valerio and Jeffrey weren’t able to score the points they wanted in today’s qualifying races. Jeffrey fought back really well from last to come 11th, but he obviously wants to score good points every race. Ruben hasn’t been feeling great and had a crash when fighting for points, so that has been tough and Valerio just hasn’t found the flow on this tricky new track here in Andalucia. However, Tom rode really well for his second place and now leads the championship, which is great for him and the team and with another holeshot today, showing the power of the Honda CRF450RW. Tomorrow is a new day, but we’ll be trying extra hard to get all our riders near the front of the field in the two motos.

Looking Back at Round One

Pereira de Freitas: As a team, Argentina was a great weekend for us. Of course, we were very nervous about Valerio but with four riders it is difficult for all of them to have success, however he looked good at the race in Italy last weekend, so we expect him to backfiring strongly in Almonte. For Tom and Jeffrey, which was about as good a debut as you can expect from the pair of them. They are tied leading the championship, with Tom winning the qualification race and Jeffrey going one-one on Sunday. Together with Ruben’s sixth place, we are really expecting another strong showing in Spain this weekend and we all can’t wait to get round two started.