Honda HRC PETRONAS starts off another run of three GPs in three weekends, when they head to Montevarchi, Italy for what is a ‘home’ GP for the team. With scorching temperatures forecast, it will certainly be a test for the four riders as they approach the halfway point in the season, but the squad are prepared and ready to give it their all.

David Bulmer story Bavo Swijgers Image

Having not been a venue in the GPs since 2006, this will be a new venue for most of the riders, although with it being in Valerio Lata’s home country, he does have experience racing there and can’t wait to put on a show for his countrymen. The young Italian had a race last weekend, and while things didn’t go completely to plan, he’ll head to the Tuscany region excited to try and put in his best results of the season.

For the MXGP trio of Ruben Fernandez, Tom Vialle and Jeffrey Herlings, it’ll be a brand new experience for them but one they are approaching with renewed confidence after this mini-break. Both Herlings and Fernandez raced in the weekend-off, winning in the UK and Spain respectively so they are coming in with some confidence and Vialle will be joining them as he has recovered from the injury that caused him to sit-out the MXGP of Latvia.

All three riders were training in Barcelona this week, putting in plenty of laps in the hot temperatures in Spain, which hopefully should prepare them for the 35C+ sunshine that is forecast in the Italian region. That shouldn’t ruin the spectacle though, for what promises to be another action-packed round of the 2026 MXGP World Championships.

Rubén Fernández: I had a good round in Germany, and things looked like it was continuing well in race one in Latvia, but then I had some more bad luck in race two and I was back to scoring the same sort of points I had previously. It was definitely a bit frustrating, so the goal is to get back to having three strong races over the weekend and challenging up front. It won’t be easy this weekend as it looks like it’ll be a hot one, but it’s the same for everyone and I’m fit and healthy and ready to go.

Tom Vialle: After missing Latvia, I spent time in Italy to try and get back to 100% which took a lot of work, but I had a good programme and now I feel like I’ll be ready for Montevarchi. It looks like a track that should suit me, it looks a little bit like a French track on a hillside and hard-pack terrain so we’ll see how it goes. I won’t be putting too much pressure on myself as it isn’t easy to miss races and come back and be at the front right away. I’m just excited to be back racing and getting this second half of the season started off well.

Jeffrey Herlings: Weekend off from the GPs was good. I raced in the UK, which I always enjoy and then we had a couple of good training sessions in Barcelona alongside the Fox Racing team. I like to keep busy and this has been good for that. Montevarchi is a new GP track so it’ll be interesting to see what that’s like. I’ve heard its pretty tight and small so we will see, but really the goal is to get back to winning some races and focusing one moto at a time.

Marcus Pereira de Freitas: After the last triple-header, we’ve had an off-weekend from the GPs to regroup and figure things out for this next triple-header in Italy, Portugal and South Africa. But while a lot of the team were doing that, other members were racing national events and making sure they went well, so really, it has still been a very busy time for us. Now we have a race that’s a few hours from our main workshop, so that’ll be good and we also have Tom back with us for a full house of riders so overall we are hoping it will go well in Montevarchi.