The 2026 FIM Motocross World Championships heads straight from the Italian island of Sardegna to the north of the country for this weekend’s MXGP of Trentino, the 22nd such event amongst the beautiful mountainsides near Lake Garda, surely one of the most spectacular venues on the MXGP calendar!

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For the 15th year in succession, the beautiful “Il Ciclamino” venue will host the MXGP elite, and this race attracts vast numbers of fans every year from all corners of Europe to the circuit between the villages of Dro and Pietramurata, becoming a true “bucket list” weekend for hardcore Motocross supporters and casual fans alike! Its central location, close to the borders of Switzerland, Austria, and particularly Slovenia, mean that many fans travel to support their riders, especially for the most successful rider in the history of this circuit, the five-time World Champion from Slovenia, Tim Gajser!

The new Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP pilot has taken six victories in all here, including his first ever GP victory, exactly 11 years ago this Sunday! His five wins in the MXGP class include last season’s event, when he enjoyed a perfect Sunday to clinch the 52nd GP winner’s trophy of his career.

He is just one of eight previous Trentino winners to line-up this weekend, at a circuit which saw its first GP in 1987, won by Italian Massimo Contini on a 125cc Cagiva.Jeffrey Herlings, currently second in the World Championship for Honda HRC Petronas, has won here five times in total, and would dearly love to match Gajser’s record in a season where he is facing one of the toughest challenges of his career!

Current MXGP red plate holder Lucas Coenen has won five of the last six GP races in 2026 for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, but the teenager has never finished on the podium here, with a best of fourth in last year’s event. His chasers will hope that lack of form continues, so that they can dent the confidence of the points leader with a four-week break to come afterwards!

Reigning MX2 World Champion Simon Längenfelder has taken three out of four GP wins with the number one plate on his Red Bull KTM Factory Racing machine, but he has also yet to win overall at Pietramurata, scoring just one podium result in 2024! His main challenger in the points standings, Sacha Coenen, has just as many podium results at Trentino as his twin brother.Yes, that means zero!With a perfect record of Qualifying Race victories so far in 2026 for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, he will be another set to correct his record at this iconic venue!

The EMX250 European Championship class heads to Trentino for its fourth round of 2026, and the bad news for the chasing pack is that Francisco Garcia, who has won all but one race of the season so far for Venum Bud Racing Kawasaki, was also victorious here last year!Sardegna winner Nikolaj Skovbjerg has jumped into second in the standings for MX-Handel Husqvarna Racing, but the Dane is an amazing 50 points back from the Spaniard! Garcia’s Australian teammate Jake Cannon had a nightmare at Riola and is another five points back. Top Italian in the series is last year’s EMX125 Champ, Nicolò Alvisi, who lies seventh for the Maddii Racing Honda ABF Italia squad, while Beddini Ducati Factory MX2 Team racer Simone Mancini will be hoping to bounce back from his Sardegna disaster at the track where he scored his only race win of last year!

There might be a few more Austrian fans joining the Pietramurata party as they have two young riders at the top of the EMX125 European Championship Presented by FMF Racing standings! Norman KTM Factory Rookies teamster Moritz Ernecker took his second overall win of the year in Sardegna, while his teammate Ricardo Bauer lost ground to sit 32 points behind. Frenchman Sleny Goyer took the second race victory for Yamaha Europe Monster Energy MJC, promoting himself to third in the series. Top Italian Andrea Uccellini will be the crowd favourite as he lies fifth for TM Moto CRD Motorsport, just ahead of his countryman David Cracco for Dreams Racing KTM.

After the sand-dance of Sardegna, the rocky slopes of Trentino will provide a very different show, but will the winners be the same? Tune in this weekend for an unmissable GP to round out the first quarter of the season! Already? Time flies when you’re having fun!

The pace of Championship leader Lucas Coenen at Riola Sardo will have unnerved any long-time Jeffrey Herlings fan, but there is now seven weeks until the next sandy GP, and moving to the hard-pack of Trentino could even the odds between the top two in the series, who are now 14 points apart. The Dutchman has taken ten individual race wins, two Qualifying Race wins, and five GP victories away from the Italian cliffsides, and will hope to make all of his 12 GP’s worth of experience here count this weekend.He took a race win when he was last fully fit at this venue, in 2023, but his most recent GP win was in October 2021, the first of three GPs here that year.

In contrast, Coenen has finished in the top three here just once, with a third in race one last year, while his best Qualifying result was a mere seventh in 2023’s MX2 round.His only success at Trentino was a double victory in EMX125 back in 2021, so he’ll be looking to unlock the old feelings from that day.

Third in the 2026 standings is now Tom Vialle, and the Honda HRC Petronas man has won twice overall here in MX2, taken seven race wins, and even clinched his first world title at this venue back in November 2020!After a crash-affected Riola GP, he has just a two-point gap over reigning Champion Romain Febvre, who holds a curious record at Il Ciclamino, winning on Saturday for the last three years, although he has never won the overall on Sunday! He has taken second overall four times in total, including each of the last two events for Kawasaki Racing Team MXGP.

Next in the standings come the Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP duo of Tim Gajser and Maxime Renaux, and the crowds always come to get behind the Slovenian at one of his best circuits, where he clinched his 2020 world title.He has finished on the podium in 13 of his last 14 appearances here, with 12 race wins and three QR victories. Can he take his very first win in blue here, as he did in red?

Renaux also clinched a world title here, his only one so far in 2021, when he took his sole GP victory at the circuit.He will welcome the return to hard-pack this weekend, as will Ruben Fernandez, who sits in seventh for Honda HRC Petronas. The Spaniard quietly took his best result yet from Sardegna, and with three MX2 podium results to his name at Arco, he is not a rider to be discounted.

Steadily building in his rookie MXGP season is Andrea Adamo, currently eighth for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing and no doubt looking forward to what may be his “true” home GP. The Sicilian has won two MX2 Grands Prix here before, including his first ever, but bizarrely never won a Sunday race, apart from a QR win in 2024, his only one that year!His old MX2 sparring partner, Kay de Wolf, is just two points behind Adamo, and took the first MXGP podium of his career last weekend for Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing. Despite the contrasting terrain, the Dutchman has shown pace in Trentino with podium results and an MX2 race win in 2024.

Calvin Vlaanderen is flying the flag for the Red Bull Ducati Factory MX Team this season, holding down tenth for the Italian manufacturer, and he will be hoping to get inspiration from what will doubtlessly be a very busy GP for the team, at a venue where he has a best finish of fourth overall in MXGP.His teammate Andrea Bonacorsi will be trying to get his first points score of the season at his home GP after coming back from his Argentina injury.

Fantic Factory Racing MXGP team leader Alberto Forato is also looking forward to his first home GP on the mainland since he took a Qualifying Race win at Maggiora in 2023, and the big man is just four points outside of the top ten in the series after a great sixth in Sardegna. Another home rider returning to Trentino for the first time since 2023, when he took fifth overall, is Mattia Guadagnini, with special kit coming for his Venrooy KTM Racing squad.

Other former winners at the Pietramurata venue include MRT Racing Team Beta rider Jago Geerts, who has won twice here in MX2. Jeremy Seewer won the 2021 MXGP of Garda here, and sits 20th in the current standings for Red Bull Ducati Factory MX Team. British star Ben Watson lines up for Dirt Store Triumph Racing at the site of his victory in 2020, his last GP in MX2.Frenchman Thibault Benistant took his last MX2 GP race win here last year, and he’ll be looking to turn around what has been a difficult first MXGP season so far for Team Honda Motoblouz SR Motul.

MXGP - World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Lucas Coenen (BEL, KTM), 192 points; 2. Jeffrey Herlings (NED, HON), 178 p.; 3. Tom Vialle (FRA, HON), 162 p.; 4. Romain Febvre (FRA, KAW), 160 p.; 5. Tim Gajser (SLO, YAM), 149 p.; 6. Maxime Renaux (FRA, YAM), 143 p.; 7. Ruben Fernandez (ESP, HON), 115 p.; 8. Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), 107 p.; 9. Kay de Wolf (NED, HUS), 105 p.; 10. Calvin Vlaanderen (NED, DUC), 90 p

There is an amazing quirk about MX2 in Trentino; for the last three years, the GP winner hasn’t actually won a race on the Sunday, proving the importance of consistency on these treacherous Italian slopes!

Defending MX2 World Champion Simon Längenfelder has kept his unique 100% podium record for the season so far, with every single Sunday race bringing him a top three result! The red plate holder now carries a 24-point advantage over fellow Red Bull KTM Factory Racing pilot Sacha Coenen, and the German will be keen to lodge a good score in race one at Trentino, as he has bizarrely never finished any higher than seventh in the first Sunday race here before! The second race win in both 2023 & ’24 shows that he can deliver on this hard-pack surface, and he has never finished outside of the top three in a Qualifying Race here, including a win in 2024. He must start this GP as a favourite, although MX2 is rarely predictable at this venue!

For Sacha, his two GPs here have brought nothing better than seventh in any race at all, so maybe his Saturday streak this year, when he’s become the first rider ever to score ten points in four consecutive Qualifying Races, could be in danger! 15 points behind him in the series is Liam Everts, after two consecutive podium results for Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing.He is the only rider in MX2 who has scored a win here before, with the overall verdict going his way in 2024, as well as last year’s Qualifying Race win, the most recent chequered flag he has taken.His throttle control always pays dividends on this sort of surface.

The Triumph Factory Racing Team will be looking to return to winning ways after taking no trophies from Sardegna, and this track is where Camden McLellan took the first ever race win for both himself and the team last season!From fourth in the Championship, he could be a threat again despite still being sore from his Swiss crash. Teammate Guillem Farres has never raced a GP at Trentino, although he took a third place in an EMX125 race at this track in 2019, so he won’t be entirely unfamiliar with it as he tries to advance from fifth in the Championship.

The Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2 teammates Janis Reisulis and Karlis Reisulis sit sixth and eighth in the series, with the younger brother recording an EMX125 double here three years ago, while the elder was on that podium for the two years before that! Mathis Valin is between them in the standings for Kawasaki Racing Team MX2 as he lines up in MX2 at Pietramurata for the first time. Will he be able to rediscover his speed from Switzerland?

Honda HRC Petronas’ Valerio Lata and DRT Racing Kawasaki’s Kay Karssemakers round out the top ten, and the Italian has three EMX overall wins to his name at this circuit! Rising Czech star Julius Mikula could be one to watch for the Ošicka KTM Racing team after a career-best sixth overall in Sardegna, and Ferruccio Zanchi will race for the Beddini Racing Ducati Factory MX2 Team, still on a comeback from a pre-season injury but on his home turf with the crowd behind him!

The MXGP of Trentino always delivers an incredible atmosphere, and the riders get inspired to deliver some amazing racing in the shadow of the Dolomites! Don’t miss one of the jewels in the crown of MXGP!It’s the MXGP of Trentino, alive and kicking this weekend!

MX2 - World Championship Top 10 Classification: 1. Simon Längenfelder (GER, KTM), 35:46.884; 2. Sacha Coenen (BEL, KTM), +0:08.311; 3. Camden Mc Lellan (RSA, Triumph), +0:13.956; 4. Liam Everts (BEL, Husqvarna), +0:22.690; 5. Karlis Alberts Reisulis (LAT, Yamaha), +0:25.607; 6. Mathis Valin (FRA, Kawasaki), +0:25.995; 7. Kay Karssemakers (NED, Kawasaki), +0:48.615; 8. Julius Mikula (CZE, KTM), +0:52.819; 9. Janis Martins Reisulis (LAT, Yamaha), +1:00.190; 10. Guillem Farres (ESP, Triumph), +1:06.344

TIMETABLE

SATURDAY: 07:40 EMX125 Group 1 Free Practice, 08:10 EMX125 Group 2 Free Practice, 08:40 EMX250 Group 1 Free Practice, 09:10 EMX250 Group 2 Free Practice, 09:50 EMX125 Group 1 Qualifying Practice, 10:30 MX2 Free Practice, 11:00 MXGP Free Practice, 11:50 EMX125 Group 2 Qualifying Practice, 12:25 EMX250 Group 1 Qualifying Practice, 13:00 EMX250 Group 2 Qualifying Practice, 13:40 MX2 Time Practice, 14:15 MXGP Time Practice, 15:00 EMX125 Race 1, 15:45 EMX250 Race 1, 16:35 MX2 Qualifying Race, 17:25 MXGP Qualifying Race.

SUNDAY: 09:40 EMX125 Race 2, 10:25 MX2 Warm-up, 10:45 MXGP Warm-up, 11:30 EMX250 Race 2, 13:15 MX2 Race 1, 14:15 MXGP Race 1, 16:10 MX2 Race 2, 17:10 MXGP Race 2.