Round one of the 2026 Motocross World Championship is getting underway this weekend at the beautiful location of Bariloche, Argentina.
For the Honda HRC PETRONAS team, that means the debuts of Tom Vialle and Jeffrey Herlings, alongside Ruben Fernandez in the MXGP class, and Valerio Lata in the MX2 class. All four riders have had a busy preseason, trying to get ready for this event and this weekend they finally get to see how they stack-up against the best motocross riders on the planet.
Herlings, who changed brands for the first time in his professional career, when he joined Honda HRC PETRONAS on January 1st. The five-time world champion and winningest GP rider in history, hasn’t had too long to get used to his new steed, but victory last weekend at the Lierop International showed that things are heading in the right direction and adding to his 112 GP wins is definitely achievable when the gate-drops on Sunday.
«It was good to get the victory at Lierop last weekend, just to boost the confidence a bit and get a couple more gate-drops under my belt. I’ve done a lot of training leading up to this race but I still think I’m a little short of gate-drops, but that can’t be changed and now I have to make sure I’m ready for this first GP. It’s definitely been a different preseason than usual, and I’ve enjoyed the challenge, however now I have to go out and perform and have a good first GP for Honda HRC PETRONAS.»
