MXGP of Turkey 2026: Herlings Can Seal Sixth World Title
Round 17 of the 2026 FIM Motocross World Championship lands at Afyonkarahisar on 5 and 6 September, and Jeffrey Herlings only needs a tidy weekend to become a six-time world champion. The proper fight is one class down, where a British bike is carrying the red plate.
Three rounds left. Turkey, China, Australia. Then everyone goes home to argue about the Nations at Ernée.
The MXGP of Türkiye is the last one that feels vaguely European before the paddock properly leaves the continent, and it arrives with Herlings 143 points clear of Romain Febvre after a weekend off. He spent that weekend off winning the MX1 class at Lavilledieu in France, because of course he did.
The maths: Herlings can be champion on Sunday
A Grand Prix weekend is worth a maximum of 60 points. Ten for winning Saturday’s RAM Qualifying Race, then 25 for each of Sunday’s two motos. Three rounds left means 180 points still on the table.
Herlings leads Febvre by 143. Third-placed Tim Gajser is 184 back, which means he is already mathematically out of it. So this is a two-horse race on paper and a one-horse race in reality.
To clinch at Afyon, Herlings needs to leave Turkey more than 120 points clear, because that is all that remains after this weekend. He currently has 143 in hand. Even if Febvre wins the qualifier and both motos for a perfect 60, Herlings only needs around 38 points of his own to seal it. That is a fifth place and a fourth place. On a bad day.
He can also do it earlier. If he gains three or more points on Febvre across Saturday’s qualifying race and Sunday’s first moto, the title is done before race two even lines up. A qualifying win plus a moto win would almost certainly get it over the line there and then.
Herlings, after sweeping Arnhem: “try to finish the job off in Turkey.” Not exactly a man weighed down by doubt.
Afyon: hard-pack, hot, and rough by lunchtime
The Afyonkarahisar Motor Sports Center opened in 2016 and has been a World Championship venue since 2018. It is 1,725 metres of hard-pack with 17 turns, sat in the mountainous countryside west of the country, and it is nothing like the sand the field has just spent August wrestling with at Lommel and Arnhem.
Hard-pack in early September means one thing: it starts slick, it gets rough, and the ruts that form are the concrete-edged sort that will spit you off if you get lazy. Gate pick matters more here than it did in the sand. Track position matters more. Time practice on Saturday is not a formality.
The venue has form for running a tight ship too, having picked up MXGP’s “Best Infrastructure” and “Best Paddock” awards in its first two years.
The Afyon form book
Eight Grands Prix have been run at Afyon. Only three riders have won one.
- 2018: Herlings, 1-1
- 2019: Herlings
- 2021 (double-header): Herlings, both events
- 2022: Gajser
- 2023: Gajser
- 2024: Jorge Prado, with Gajser second and Herlings 10-3 for his first ever loss at the circuit
- 2025: Herlings, his 111th career GP win
That is five overall wins here for Herlings, two for Gajser, one for Prado. Nobody else has ever climbed the top step at this place. Add in that Herlings took his 122nd career Grand Prix win at Arnhem and has won the last four GPs in a row, and you can see why the bookies have stopped taking bets.
Who else is turning up
The provisional MXGP entry is 23 riders. Kay de Wolf is on it, and he has earned everyone’s attention after pushing Herlings to 2-2 finishes in Arnhem and making the Dutch GP an actual race rather than a procession. Calvin Vlaanderen and Rick Elzinga make it four Dutchmen.
Lucas Coenen is entered. The Belgian tried to come back at Arnhem, got through practice, and then withdrew with ongoing hip trouble. Whether he actually gates in Turkey is a different question, and his season has been a study in what happens when a title challenge meets a run of injuries. Jago Geerts is also on the list.
Tom Vialle arrives leading the Fox Holeshot standings with nine starts won this year, and he has been on the podium in three of the last four rounds. On a hard-pack track where the first corner decides an awful lot, that is not a small thing.
MX2 is where the actual racing is, and Triumph are in it
Here is the bit that should interest anyone in the UK.
Guillem Farrés leads MX2 on a Triumph. Camden McLellan is third on a Triumph. The gaps are 25 points to Sacha Coenen and 37 to McLellan, with 180 still available. That is a genuine three-way fight going into the flyaways.
Triumph only entered the MX2 World Championship in 2024. Mikkel Haarup put the TF 250-X on the podium at its first ever Grand Prix. McLellan took the marque’s first GP win at Almonte in March this year, Farrés delivered a first one-two in France in May and a first perfect 1-1-1 weekend in Portugal in July, and the team has racked up eight Grand Prix wins across 2026.
Three seasons in, a British manufacturer from Hinckley is one good run of flyaways away from a motocross world title. That has not happened for a British brand in a very long time. Whatever you think of the badge, that is a proper story and it starts unfolding at Afyon.
Liam Everts won race two in Arnhem and Simon Längenfelder is still lurking, so nobody is getting a free run at it.
EMX250 signs off
Turkey hosts the final round of the EMX250 European Championship, alongside EMX125. Francisco GarcÃa has already wrapped the title up at Arnhem, so the interest is further down: Australian Jake Cannon needs a single point to lock in third overall.
When it’s on, and how to watch from the UK
Türkiye runs on UTC+3, which is two hours ahead of British Summer Time. That is the good news. Everything happens in the middle of your Sunday rather than at breakfast.
The confirmed timetable lands during race week. Based on recent Afyon schedules, expect Saturday to run free practice and time practice through the morning and early afternoon, with the MX2 and MXGP RAM Qualifying Races closing the day. Sunday should give you MX2 Race 1 and MXGP Race 1 early afternoon local, then MX2 Race 2 and MXGP Race 2 late afternoon. In UK terms that puts the first MXGP moto around lunchtime and the second around mid-afternoon.
Every session goes out live on MXGP-TV.com, which remains the most reliable route for UK viewers. Check the current listings before you commit to a subscription, because the free-to-air and pay-TV picture in the UK has moved around plenty in recent years.
Our take
Herlings wins the title this weekend. Probably in race one. The bloke has won the last four Grands Prix, has five overall wins at this circuit, and spent his week off winning a French international for fun. Barring something going properly wrong, it is done.
The one to actually watch is MX2. Farrés has 25 points and a Triumph, Sacha Coenen has speed and a habit of finding the floor at the wrong moment, and McLellan has just reminded everyone he can win when it matters. Three rounds, three continents, 180 points. That one goes to Darwin.
Not going to be sat in front of a screen all September? Get out and ride. The Lid Life Events Finder lists bike nights, ride-outs, race meets, rallies and track days across the UK, updated constantly and free to use.
