The MXGP World
Just Got Turned
Upside Down

If you walked away from MXGP at the end of 2025 and came back now, you'd barely recognize the pit lane. The off-season bombshell that sent Tim Gajser to Monster Energy Yamaha and brought Jeffrey Herlings to Honda HRC — two of the biggest moves in the sport's history happening simultaneously — set the stage for a 2026 campaign unlike anything we've seen in years. Five rounds in, it's delivering everything it promised.

Lucas Coenen leads the championship with 231 points. Jeffrey Herlings is four back at 227. Tom Vialle sits third. Romain Febvre, the defending champion, is fifth — already 40 points off the pace. Nobody running the sport in the off-season could have scripted this better if they tried.

The Swap That Changed Everything

The MXGP off-season has produced some memorable roster moves over the years, but the winter of 2025–2026 was something else entirely. Tim Gajser — five-time world champion, the face of Honda HRC for over a decade, winner of his fifth title just the year before in 2025 — left the Japanese manufacturer for Monster Energy Yamaha. Within weeks, Honda had filled the void with the one rider capable of making people quickly forget: Jeffrey Herlings, also a five-time world champion, also leaving his longtime home at KTM.

The result is a paddock where both Honda and Yamaha now carry a five-time champion, where KTM is running a 21-year-old in the number-one role, and where the defending Kawasaki champion is quietly fighting to stay relevant. Every team's story is compelling. None more so than the two men whose moves set it all in motion.

Gajser is adapting. He's fourth in the championship after five rounds, 33 points down from the top. That's not a crisis — it's a rider getting comfortable on new equipment through a season-opening stretch that includes sand (Sardegna) and hard-pack (Trentino), two conditions the Yamaha handles differently than the Honda he spent his career on. The patience he showed winning five titles suggests he'll find his rhythm. The question is whether the gap will be too large to close by then.

Herlings has looked like Herlings. He won the opening round in Argentina, went wheel-to-wheel with Coenen in the sand at Sardegna, and bounced back in Trentino. If anything, the move to Honda HRC has reinvigorated the Dutchman. He's riding with the hunger of someone who has something to prove on new machinery — and right now, that's a terrifying combination.

The Kid Who Was Supposed to Wait His Turn

And then there's Lucas Coenen.

The 21-year-old Belgian stepped up to MXGP this season from MX2, where he had been one of the fastest young riders in the world. Most rookies in the premier class spend their first season learning — adjusting to the heavier machinery, the deeper field, the relentless physicality of 40-minute motos against the sport's best. Coenen apparently didn't get that memo.

Five rounds in, he leads the MXGP World Championship. He won Andalucia outright — sweeping both motos on a course that suits his aggressive, technically precise style. He went 1-2 at Sardegna, beating Herlings in the sand — no small feat given the Dutchman's legendary ability in loamy conditions. He's consistent, clinical, and riding with a confidence that belies his experience level.

What makes Coenen's rise even more compelling is the Coenen family subplot running alongside it. His younger brother Sacha is currently leading the MX2 championship, dominating qualifying sessions all season and racking up impressive moto results. The possibility of both Coenen brothers leading their respective world championship classes simultaneously is not just a headline — it would be one of the sport's all-time storylines.

The Defending Champion Is Already In Trouble

Romain Febvre is fifth in the championship with 191 points — 40 behind Coenen, 36 behind Herlings. That's not insurmountable across 14 remaining rounds, but it's not where a defending champion wants to be either. The Frenchman on the Kawasaki won his second world title last year in commanding fashion, but 2026 has a different feel to it.

Part of that is the field itself. When the gap between first and fifth is 40 points after five rounds, that speaks to how close and competitive this year's grid is. Every time Febvre has a chance to string together back-to-back moto wins, either Coenen or Herlings — or both — is right there to make sure he doesn't build any momentum. He's not struggling. He's just operating in a season where the ceiling for everyone else got higher.

Round by Round: The Story So Far

The Championship Picture After Five Rounds

What Happens Next

Round 6 heads to Lacapelle-Marival in France this weekend — a hard-pack circuit that has historically favored technically gifted, smooth riders. Tom Vialle, who swept the Swiss GP and is French himself, will be the home favorite and a legitimate threat to win. It's also the kind of track where Gajser has shown flashes of brilliance, and where Herlings — who arrived in MXGP knowing how to win on everything — will be dangerous.

But Coenen doesn't care. He's been fast everywhere so far. The rookie who was supposed to learn his first season is currently the man to beat, and there are still 14 rounds left to find out if anyone can run him down.

The rest of the calendar is unforgiving: Latvia, Italy, Portugal, South Africa, Great Britain, Lommel's infamous sand, Sweden, and finally Australia in Darwin. Every single round will test something different. A 19-round championship shapes character as much as it awards championships.

The numbers say Coenen leads. The narrative says anything can happen. With Herlings four points back and hungry on a new machine, Gajser finding his legs on Yamaha blue, Vialle capable of winning on any given Sunday, and Febvre with enough pride and talent to stage a comeback — this title fight has everything it needs to go down to the wire.