Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1545630
Herlings, Farres Take MXGP of Portugal Wins T he 10th round of the FIM Mo- tocross World Championship took place at Portugal's famed Crossodromo Internacional de Agueda, June 26-28, marking the halfway point of the 2026 sea - son. The racing featured another exciting battle between Jeffrey Herlings and Lucas Coenen in MXGP, while Guillem Farres com - pleted a perfect weekend in MX2 and significantly tightened the points fight. Herlings continued his mid - season resurgence by capturing his second consecutive MXGP victory for the Honda HRC Petro - nas team. After charging from outside the top five in race one, the Dutchman finished second to championship leader Lucas Coenen. The two rivals went at it in a spectacular second moto be - fore Herlings forced his way into the lead with a decisive inside block pass. He never looked back and marched away to the 117th Grand Prix victory of his career. More importantly for him, the win cut Coenen's championship advantage to 57 points as the series heads into the second half. Romain Febvre rounded out the overall podium with a pair of consistent third-place finishes. The reigning World Champion steadily worked his way forward in both motos and capitalized on mistakes from those around him. His consistency delivered a fourth-consecutive podium finish in Portugal and allowed him to remain in the championship hunt despite not being able to match the pace of Herlings and Coenen. Tim Gajser finished fourth overall after another solid week - end aboard his Monster Energy Yamaha Factory machine. The Slovenian rider recovered from midpack starts in both motos and logged fourth-place finishes each time. He briefly challenged for a podium position in race two, but a small crash while under pressure from Febvre dropped him back one position. Ruben Fernandez gave the Portuguese fans plenty to cheer about with one of his strongest weekends of the season. Racing just across the border from his native Spain, the Honda rider ran near the front all day and fin - ished fifth overall after battling inside the lead group throughout both motos. MX2 Guillem Farres delivered a flawless weekend for the Tri- umph Racing Factory Team, sweeping the qualifying race and both motos to earn his second career Grand Prix victory. The Spanish rider immediately took control on lap one of the open - ing moto after he made his way around early leader Julius Mikula and was never chal- lenged from that point forward. He repeated the performance in race two, grabbing the holeshot and leading every lap to com- plete a perfect 1-1-1 weekend. The dominant performance cut the championship lead from 46 points entering the weekend to just 32 as the title fight contin - ues to tighten. WIND IN THE P58 Jeffrey Herlings continued his midseason run with another overall victory, this time at the MXGP of Portugal.