From Lotte van Drunen Dominating to the Return of Tony Cairoli, the Dutch GP Delivered
The MXGP of The Netherlands was effectively a two-day rave, with the Dutch heroes and the wildcard return of Antonio Cairoli at its core. While the animated crowd enjoyed the party vibe with EDM blaring from dusk till dawn, in terms of the racing, they got what they came for!
Glenn Coldenhoff had the fans toppling over fences in celebration of his insane Qualifying Race win, while Lotte van Drunen super-charged her meteoric rise to the top of the WMX World Championship with another mind-blowing performance in brutal conditions to remain unbeaten on home soil.
Lotte, The Queen of Sand, arrived at her home round with the weight of the world on her shoulders. She was the dominant winner of the Grand Prix in Arnhem in 2023, and not only had to deal with the pressure of her home fans expecting a repeat performance, but she also only had a slim 3-point lead in the championship – which could be decimated by a single race with 3-points being the gap in points between a rider that wins versus a rider that finishes second. “I guess I just did what I was expected to do by all the fans,” she said with a sigh of relief, “to win here, the same like last year is special for me, and even better for the championship with just one round to go. I think I’m ready for it.”
Thriving on the support of a nation that was willing her to victory, the recently turned 17-year-old was flawless all weekend. She powered to two holeshots and remained inch-perfect in her charge to secure the incredible double race win the thousands of fans packed into the tight Arnhem venue came to see. She was, however, kept honest by fellow Monster Energy star Courtney Duncan, who is not a natural sand rider, but that could have fooled you with the Kiwi girl finishing hot on the heels of Lotte in both races, to finish a hard-fought second overall.
While The Netherlands is well-known as the current hotbed for motocross talent, the reason orange flares let off throughout the weekend was for the surprise performance of Monster Energy’s Glenn Coldenhoff. The Hoff led every single lap of the Qualifying Race to hand Fantic its first-ever MXGP race victory – marking his first Pole Position since the MXGP of Sardegna in March 2023. “This was big,” he said, “I feel like I haven’t had any good results this year, so I really wanted to win this race. It was not easy because I had Prado all over me, and he was a bit faster, so I just gave it everything I had and managed to get it.”
On race day, ‘The Hoff’ was on fire. The 32-year-old Dutchman fired out of the gate in both races and went head-to-head with three of the fastest men on the planet—Jeffrey Herlings, Jorge Prado, and Tim Gajser—in hopes of securing a podium spot. Despite falling just a single point short of that goal, Glenn was hands down the people’s champion.
So too was Antonio Cairoli. Tony was easily one of the biggest attractions at the Dutch Grand Prix this year for two reasons. One, because everyone wanted to see the GOAT back on the gate again, and two, because he was lining up Ducati’s DESMO450 motocross bike for the first time in MXGP. “This will be one of the toughest GPs of the year, so I know it won’t be easy. We have been working a lot on this bike in the sand over the last few weeks, so we have been here in Belgium and The Netherlands testing in the sand, so we are here to gather some data and information.”
After three years away from racing, Tony was thrown right back into the thick of things. “I enjoyed it a lot,” he grinned. “It was quite a shock to the system right from the first practice. The track was already so rough, but I got into race mode, and together with the team, we wanted to test some things on the bike. I was happy with P7 in qualifying; that is a good result to race for the first time on an entirely new bike and after so many years out. We did change quite a lot of things over the weekend, to try new things. In the first race, I hit the gate a little bit at the start and came to P15, which is not the best result, but okay, my riding was okay. We changed some things for race two, and it was better, but I didn’t get the best start again. I still got back to about eighth but had to pull out because of a mechanical issue,” he explained. “Overall, we had a really positive weekend. We gathered a lot of information, which was what we came to do, and with my result from yesterday, we showed that we already have a bike that can run inside the top ten, so that is a good place to start with a brand-new bike.”
From The Netherlands, the MXGP series heads straight to Switzerland for its third consecutive Grand Prix and the 17th round of 20 in 2024.