Prado dominates MXGP of Spain | de Wolf tops MX2

2024 FIM Motocross World Championship
Round Two – MXGP of Spain, Madrid

Round Two of the MXGP World Motocross Championships was held over the weekend in high temperatures and across the hard-baked ruts of Spain’s Circuito Internacional Comunidad de Madrid, marking the first visit to European soil for MXGP 2024 after the season kicked off in Argentina.

The Spanish fans were in for a treat, with home heroes Red Bulll GASGAS Factory Racing’s Jorge Prado in MXGP, and RFME GASGAS MX Junior’s Daniela Guillen in the WMX Women’s World Motocross Championship dominating their classes with clean sweeps. Check out Moto Wrap tomorrow for the WMX report.

Tim Gajser settled for runner-up, running 2-2, while Romain Febvre claimed third, tying on points with Jeffrey Herlings, the duo running 3-4 and 4-3 respectively.

MX2 saw closer racing again, Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing’s Kay De Wolf claiming the overall with a race win, and increasing his Championship advantage, however Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Andrea Adamo took the race two win, finishing third overall after a less impressive opening race. Simon Laengenfelder took out second overall in the MX2 class, proving the more consistent racer over the weekend.

MXGP Race One

Jorge Prado was focussed on the job in hand, despite the extra pressures of being World Champion, Red Plate Holder, and national hero, he was not going to be denied in front of his fans. Prado launched his Red Bull GASGAS Factory Racing machine into the lead immediately in both races, with the Fox Holeshot Award a formality.

In race one, it was the Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MXGP pairing of Maxime Renaux and Calvin Vlaanderen giving chase as Prado put in devastating sub-1:52 lap times that no-one else could match.

Team Ship to Cycle Honda rider Valentin Guillod made his presence felt early, but title contenders such as Tim Gajser for Team HRC, Romain Febvre for Kawasaki Racing Team, and Jeffrey Herlings for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing all had to fight forward from average starts.

One-by-one the former World Champions fired past Guillod, but Prado built an insurmountable lead that nobody could overhaul.

Renaux started to drop back with pain from his foot injury sustained here last May. He would not make it to the start of race two.

Gajser brought the Honda home in second place over eight-seconds behind Prado, while Herlings won a back-and-forth battle with Febvre to take third ahead of the Frenchman.

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Renaux clung on to fifth ahead of Fantic Factory Racing rider Glenn Coldenhoff.

MXGP Race One Results

MXGP Race Two

Race two promised a more intense battle as Gajser and Febvre both got away in Prado’s wheel tracks, second and third, Herlings quickly moving up to fourth by the start of the first full lap.

In front of a baying crowd Prado demonstrated that he could pull away from the three former World Champions, leaving them all in his wake. His best lap time came again on lap two, amazingly a tiny nine-thousands of a second faster than his best from race one!

Although Febvre got close to challenging Gajser with around five minutes left to go in the race, he could not find a way past as the circuit had reached its most challenging level of the weekend, and the top five stayed as Prado, Gajser, Febvre, Herlings, and Vlaanderen throughout the race.

Vlaanderen put in his best ride yet on the factory Yamaha team to help make up for the absence of Renaux. Coldenhoff got close to him but took a tumble before the finish line to knock himself out of the race.

The overall result was the same as race two’s, except for Jeremy Seewer taking fifth overall for the Kawasaki Racing Team through consistent 7-6 finishes.

MXGP Race Two Results

MXGP Overall

The round overall was Prado on 50-points, Gajser on 44, and Febvre and Herlings tied on 38. From there Seewer was fifth on 29-points, Vlaanderen sixth on 28, and Jonass seventh on 27. Guillod, Horgo and Watson rounding out the top-10.

In the overall Prado extends his Championship lead to ten points over Gajser, the duo on 114 to 104-points.

Febvre is 12 further back in third on 98-points and Herlings moved up to fourth with 77-points in total. All three chasers will be hoping that the sands of Sardegna, in two weeks’ time will give them the opportunity to claw back some points on the runaway defending Champion.

Fifth through tenth are now Jonass, Seewer, Renaux, Vlaanderen, Guillod and Coldenhoff.

Jorge Prado – P1

“This is all about racing, winning here in Spain is special! It has been a perfect weekend just winning every single time I went out on track. I can’t be more happy to be honest and do it on home-soil makes everything special with so many fans that came here and me giving them this victory is amazing. I feel super proud of what I did and of course I want to thank all my team RedBull GasGas Factory Racing that supported me during all weekend; we are doing an amazing job and let’s keep it rolling.”

Tim Gajser – P2

“It was a consistent weekend and to be honest I need to be happy, today Jorge was really impressive, in Race 1 I had a good start and I couldn’t reach him I saw he had a consistent gap of 12 second so I didn’t even push to not make any mistakes. In Race 2 I’ve tried becaue we were together but then he made a little gap and from behind I had Romain pushing hard so I prefered taking the points and be consistent. Thanks to all my team and my family for the great support during the weekend.”

Romain Febvre – P3

“I’m happy to finish on the podium because this weekend I really struggled on the starts. As you could see in Race 1, I had a really bad start so we decided to make a big change for Race 2 and it worked because I’ve almost took the FOX Holeshot so for that I’m a bit disappointed that we found the solution only at the end of the weekend but the pass was good and anyway Jorge was really fast this weekend so I’m happy to be third on the podium. Thanks to all the team for the work and let’s keep going.”

MXGP Round Overall

MXGP Championship Points – Top 20

MX2 Race One

After a RAM Qualifying Race win on Saturday Kay de Wolf looked close to unstoppable, but Thibault Benistant was quick to make a daring move with his Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2 machine into the third corner to keep the Dutchman at bay.

The field were all chasing Red Bull GASGAS Factory Racing’s Simon Laengenfelder, who took his first Fox Holeshot Award of the season ahead of Benistant and his fast-starting teammate at Monster Energy Yamaha Factory MX2 – Rick Elzinga.

F&H Kawasaki rookie Quentin Prugnieres got in on the fun by block-passing Liam Everts, back from injury for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, for fourth place in a frantic first lap.

On the run up to the finish area, De Wolf roared around the outside of Elzinga for third, but teammate Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing’s Lucas Coenen suffered a slide that put him directly into the path of Prugnieres. Quentin had nowhere to go and hit the ground, eventually recovering to 17th.

Langenfelder attempted to sprint away at the front as De Wolf took until the third lap to get past Benistant into second. The Yamaha man had a difficult race as he lost several positions, finally finishing seventh after a rough-looking crash on a downhill corner.

At almost the 20-minute mark, De Wolf found a burst of speed and forced Laengenfelder to back out of doing the big uphill triple jump, pulling a spectacular “stork” move to clear the distance himself and take the lead, which he never lost.

Laengenfelder was threatened by Lucas Coenen as well, but the Belgian lost his footing in a rut on the final lap and the top three stayed in that order with Everts a solid fourth and Mikkel Haarup a charging fifth for Monster Energy Triumph Racing after making a late move on Adamo. Camden Mc Lellan made it a second Triumph in the top-10 with eighth.

MX2 Race One Results

MX2 Race Two

Race two saw a shake up in the order again as Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Adamo briefly led a team running of first, second and third, after Sacha Coenen took the Fox Holeshot ahead of Adamo and Everts. Only for Benistant to break up the party with two swift passes to climb to second by the start of the first full lap.

De Wolf was on the charge and passed Benistant with an over-jump that looked painful on landing, but got the job done. He swept around Sacha Coenen to lead after four minutes and it looked like the race was over.

However Adamo was having none of it and also demoted his younger teammate shortly afterwards. Sacha then made a mistake in the waves and dropped several positions to eventually come home in eighth.

Adamo dug into his reserves to chase down De Wolf, something few people have done this season, and by half-distance he had closed the gap and made a sharp move up the inside of a flat right-hander. The reigning Champ passing the current Championship leader, Kay unable to match his pace.

Behind them, Laengenfelder, from a start outside the top ten, made passes on first Everts, then Benistant, to climb to third.

Monster Energy Triumpg Racing’s Camden McLellan briefly challenged Everts but would finish in seventh, the first Triumph rider home as Haarup dropped his machine with two laps to go!

Both Everts and Benistant fell prey to a charging Lucas Coenen, who was up to fourth by the flag, but all eyes were on De Wolf as he resumed his charge on Adamo in the closing laps, only to miss a rut with his rear wheel and slide to the floor.

He picked it up in time to just hold off Laengenfelder, and although Adamo celebrated both his first race win and overall podium finish as reigning World Champion, it was Kay De Wolf who brought home the overall Grand Prix victory for the second round in a row, and for the third time in his career!

MX2 Race Two Results

MX2 Overall

Kay de Wolf secured the overall on 47-points, to Simon Laengenfelder’s 42, with Andrea Adamo third on 40. Lucan Coenen and Liam Everts rounding out the top-five on 38 and 33-points respectively.

De Wolf now leads the standings by 12 points from Laengenfelder, 12-points separating the leading duo, 113-101.

Adamo’s win lifted him to third in both GP as well as the Championship standings and as a result he heads to the next two rounds on Italian soil with renewed confidence.

Lucas Coenen holds down fourth on 75-points, with Benistant fifth on 72. Sixth through 10th is Haarup, Rossi, Sacha Coenen, Mc Lellan and Elzinger. The Triumphs currently sixth and ninth.

Kay De Wolf – P1

“I’ve worked really hard in all the races especially for the second one where the pace was really fast and incredible for all of us; I tried to catch Andrea till the last lap but then I did few mistakes that made me think of the classification and relax a bit and follow my rhythm. I can’t thank enough the team for all the hard work they did this weekend and for preparing the bike in the best shape possible.”

Simon Laengenfelder – P2

“I rode really well attacking almost all Race 2, even if I was faster than Kay I couldn’t find a good line to pass him and I had to keep the third position but for the next race I’m sure I can do better.”

Andrea Adamo – P3

“Like I said already, it was a really tough winter for me; I’ve been struggling a lot and I came in Argentina totally not ready for it and only my team knows how hard it was for me. Here in Spain I’ve found more confidence with the bike and session after session once I go on the track I’m getting faster and more confident and finally today I got the win in race 2 which feels like a GP win. Now I’m really happy and I want to keep going in this way.”

MX2 Round Overall

MX2 Championship Standings