Honda HRC PETRONAS’ Jeffrey Herlings made it two podiums out of two, with a strong two-two performance at the MXGP of Andalucia. Held at the new, sandy Almonte circuit in the south of Spain, the Dutchman got two good starts and quickly worked his way into second place in both races, continuing his excellent Sunday form and keeping himself within touching distance of the championship lead.
After a Saturday crash in the qualifying race left him with 11th gate-pick, the Honda CRF450RW rider overcame the outside gate and rounded the first turn inside the top five. From there, he tried his best to get himself into the lead as quickly as possible, but he was beaten to the punch and although he tried to catch the leader, he was never able to make a battle for the top spot. It is still an excellent start to his Honda career though and with plenty of racing left to go, he knows that with this sort of form, he’ll be fighting for first place more often than not.
Teammate Tom Vialle also continued his strong start to the season by going two-five-six over the course of the weekend, including another holeshot in the first moto today. In what was his first European sand race in over three years, the speed was excellent for the Frenchman, but he wasn’t quite able to maintain the momentum over the duration of the two motos. Still, he has a lot to be happy with in the first two GPs and next week’s track in Switzerland should really play to his strengths and he hopes to be regaining the championship-leading red-plate which adorned his Honda CRF450RW today.
The third member of the 450 squad, Ruben Fernandez, came into this weekend under the weather, but determined to try his best in front of the passionate home crowd. A tough qualifier yesterday meant he had a lower gate-pick than normal and unfortunately that meant he was collected up in a first turn incident in race one. Remounting at the back of the field, the Spaniard put on a big charge – much to the excitement of the crowd – and worked his way up to 12th place. With renewed optimism that his speed was good, he avoided any dramas around the first turns of race two and found himself in sixth place. Unfortunately the energy he expended in race one, combined with his depleted capacity from his illness meant that he wasn’t able to maintain that, and although he tried his best to maintain a top 10 finish, he did slip to 11th on the last lap. Definitely not the home GP he was looking for, but Switzerland is next weekend, which is a track he won the qualifying race at last year.
Also heading to Switzerland with optimism is Valerio Lata, after the young Italian showed what he was capable of with a fourth place in race two. The Honda CRF250RW rider got better and better over the course of the weekend and after an eighth in race one, the fourth place showed his real speed on the tricky sandy surface. Now the goal will be to repeat that feat on a more favourable Frauenfeld facility, which is where Honda HRC PETRONAS will be heading for the third round of the 2026 MXGP World Championships.
