It’s time for the Champions to be crowned in both classes of the 2024 MXGP Motocross World Championships, as the Spanish venue of Cozar hosts the 20th and final round of the series, the MXGP of Castilla La Mancha!
Named after the landlocked autonomous community that it is set in, the circuit is part of the Circuito Motor Ranch, to be found around 240km south of the capital Madrid and 130km west of the city of Albacete. The venue will be the 19th circuit in Spain to ever host a Motocross Grand Prix, and the second in the Castilla La Mancha region after Talavera de la Reina. This is our third visit to Spain this season, and home hero Jorge Prado has taken victory in both previous rounds for Red Bull GASGAS Factory Racing in MXGP. Kay de Wolf took the victory in MX2 at intu-Xanadu Arroyomolinos, but his Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing teammate Lucas Coenen won overall at Lugo for the MXGP of Galicia in May.
The MXGP world title will be decided between reigning World Champion Prado and Team HRC’s Tim Gajser, who lost the points lead in China and now sits just seven points behind his rival! Jeffrey Herlings has a slim mathematical chance for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, but a 48-point gap to Prado makes his chance a very remote one.
The year-long tussle for the MX2 World Championship between Dutchman De Wolf and Belgian Lucas Coenen is closer than it’s been since the opening round, with the chasing Coenen closing in with the last two GP wins to trim the gap to 36 points. As in MXGP, it will go down to the very last day of the Championship, which also just happens to be De Wolf’s 20th birthday!
There will be more Champions crowned at Cozar, as the EMX250 European Championship has its final round to decide the three-way battle between series leader Mathis Valin, the Frenchman on the Bud Racing Kawasaki, Italian Valerio Lata for Beddini GASGAS Factory Juniors, and Dutch flyer Cas Valk, who is fresh from winning the British MX2 Championship for Gabriel SS24 KTM last weekend! Valin holds a 21-point lead over Lata, so could clinch the title in race one, and Valk is ten points further back in third. All three are MX2-bound for 2025, so this is their last chance for claiming EMX Championship glory!
The EMX125 Championship Presented by FMF also comes to its conclusion this weekend, and this one is even closer than MXGP, with just six points between new leader Gyan Doensen, the Dutchman on the Racestore KTM Factory Rookies team, and Hungarian Noel Zanocz for Fantic Factory Racing EMX125, who also field the Italian Simone Mancini, who has a small mathematical chance in third place, 32 points behind Doensen.
TIMETABLE
SATURDAY: 09:30 EMX125 Free Practice, 10:00 EMX250 Free Practice, 10:30 MX2 Free Practice, 11:00 MXGP Free Practice, 12:20 EMX125 Qualifying practice, 13:00 EMX250 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 RAM Qualifying Race, 17:25 MXGP RAM Qualifying Race.
SUNDAY: 09:45 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.
