Super Stats: 2025 Motocross of Nations Analytical Deep Dive

The 2025 Motocross of Nations is here! This week’s event at Ironman will be the 78th Motocross of Nations event.

This is my favorite race of the year and I will be in attendance this year! Very much looking forward to it!

This is the first time Ironman has hosted the event. This will be the sixth time the United States has hosted the MXoN. So far the United States has won 4 of the 5 previous events they have hosted. (More on home teams in a bit).

For this article I am going to break down average winning scores, closest races, home advantage stats, drop scores averages and more from the past 20 years. There have been 20 MXoNs from 2004 to 2024 – no event in 2020 due to covid.

I’ll be focusing on the last 20 events since 2004 in this article for a few reasons:

Format consistency. The format has been the same since 2004. 2002 and 2003 had an odd one moto format.
While the format from 1996-2001 is the same as now, this was still the 500cc era bikes. I feel 2004-present is more representative.

I’ll break down the stats mentioned above and then have some stats on the teams and riders for this year’s event.

Scoring Averages since 2004

Place	Average Score	Low Score	Low Score Team	High Score	High Score Team
Winner	21.40	8	USA 2007	37	Italy 2021
Runner Up	30.75	16	USA 2015	47	Belgium 2019
Third Place	38.95	26	Australia 2022	58	Great Britain 2019

The drop from the average winning score to the runner up is pretty significant as well as the drop to third place.

Closest MXoNs since 2004

Year	Winner	2nd Place	Points Gap
2016	France	Netherlands	1
2021	Italy	Netherlands	1
2015	France	USA	2
2013	Belgium	USA	3
2024	Australia	USA	3

The Netherlands and United States have come up just short a few times in the past 20 years.

With this in mind, I wanted to look into which moto score typically gets dropped, is it always the MX2 rider or one of the Open or even MXGP class riders?

MXoN Drop Score Class Statistics since 2004

Winning team since 2004:

MXGP Class	MX2 Class	Open Class
3	11	6
15.00%	55.00%	30.00%

Just over half the time the winning team has the MX2 rider drop their lowest score. 8 of 11 (72.73%) MX2 score drops come from the MXGP/MX2 moto as well.

Podium Finishers since 2004:

MXGP Class	MX2 Class	Open Class
9	35	16
15.00%	58.33%	26.67%

Similar stats to the winning team for podium teams. 23 of the 35 (65.71%) MX2 score drops once again come from the MXGP/MX2 moto.

Top 5 Finishers since 2004:

MXGP Class	MX2 Class	Open Class
17	54	29
17.00%	54.00%	29.00%

More consistency in terms of drop score for Top 5 finishers. 32 of the 54 (59.26%) MX2 score drops come from the MXGP/MX2 moto.

This data isn’t too surprising as a whole. The MXGP rider will in all likelihood be the teams strongest rider. The MXGP class rider also gets a longer break between motos as well. But it is interesting to see the stats on this. This basically just confirms how important the MX2 rider is to the MXoN team.

So this covers the drop moto score, but what about the lowest score that still counts for teams? This would be the teams 5th score from the event. Lets look at some averages for this:

Average 5th Moto Score:

Team Placement	5th Score Average	Low Score	Low Score Team
Winners	8.95	17	USA 2011, Italy 2021
Podium Finishers	11.85	34	Netherlands 2018

From 2004-2024, the winning teams worst moto score is an 8.95 on average! Essentially, you can afford one score in the 8-15 range on average, but nothing worse.

For those on the podium, its an average of 11.85 which is not much of a gap to the winners. Furthermore, the low score is a bit skewed by the Netherlands in 2018. The Netherlands other moto scores in 2018 were 1-1-1-2 (that’s the best score you can possibly get for the four other motos!). Other than that the lowest was 24th.

This really goes to show how thin the margin is at the MXoN!

Host Country Advantage?

The United States has won 4 of the 5 MXoNs they have hosted. The Netherlands finally broke through with their first ever MXoN victory on home soil in 2019. So is there a home country advantage?

Since 2004, the host country does quite well…

Average Finish since 2004	Wins since 2004	Win % since 2004	Podiums	Podium % since 2004	Top 5s	Top 5 % since 2004
3.80	7	35.00%	12	60.00%	15	75.00%

But this is pretty misleading. Here are the host countries since 2004:

MXoN Hosts since 2004	Times Hosted
France	4
Great Britain	4
United States	4
Italy	3
Netherlands	2
Belgium	1
Germany	1
Latvia	1

Outside of Latvia, these are historical motocross powers. In the history of the MXoN, only 11 teams/nations have won the event.

Of the 8 teams listed above …these teams have won 66 of the 77 MXoNs in history. (Latvia has never won.)

The other 11 wins? Sweden 7 times, Australia last year, and then two countries that no longer exist: the USSR twice (1968 and 1978) and Czechoslovakia in 1975.

But lets compare their stats in host years vs regular years:

Host Years vs Regular Years for Host Countries since 2004:

Team	Home Race Years	Average Finish at Home Races	Average Finish in Non Home Races	Home Race +/-
Netherlands	2004, 2019	1.50	8.00	+6.50
Italy	2009, 2016, 2021	4.00	8.00	+4.00
Latvia	2014	12.00	14.17	+2.17
Belgium	2012	2.00	4.00	+2.00
France	2005, 2011, 2015, 2023	1.50	3.31	+1.81
Germany	2013	7.00	8.39	+1.39
United States	2007, 2010, 2018, 2022	2.00	3.07	+1.07
Great Britain	2006, 2008, 2017, 2024	6.25	6.50	+0.25

The host countries all improve since 2004, however these are pretty small sample sizes, so I went a step further.

I compared countries that have hosted the MXoN 6+ times since 1947 and compared their host years vs non host years – this will hopefully provide a better sample size. (Keep in mind the format of the event has changed drastically over the years.)

Historical Host Advantage?

Nation	Times Hosted	Host Year Average Finish	Non Host Year Average Finish	Host +/-
Sweden	6	2.00	7.83	+5.83
Great Britain	11	3.91	9.25	+5.34
Netherlands	9	2.71	6.72	+4.01
Belgium	10	1.90	3.38	+1.48
France	10	4.89	5.78	+0.89

This shows a historically advantage for host countries. But I think a lot of this is skewed by the early 20 or so years of the MXoN where very few teams were competing. Just 6-8 teams competed back then. So I don’t think there is much to take away from these stats. But there is some statistical evidence of host country advantage.

Okay lets look at the teams and riders for the 2025 event.

Notable Team and Rider Breakdowns

Australia

MXGP – Jett Lawrence

MX2 – Kyle Webster

Open – Hunter Lawrence

This is the exact same roster as last for Team Australia. Hunter actually rode the MXGP class last year with Jett in the Open class. Australia comes in to this event as the clear favorite, however, the same three man team has never won the Motocross of Nations in back to back years!

United States

MXGP – Eli Tomac

MX2 – Haiden Deegan

Open – RJ Hampshire

This is Eli Tomac’s 6th appearance on Team USA, this will tie Tomac for second most Team USA appearances in the MXoN. Tomac will be tied with Ricky Carmichael, Ryan Dungey and Jeff Emig. Jeff Ward leads with 7 appearnces. Interestingly, Tomac has never won his individual class at the MXoN.

RJ Hampshire makes his second appearance – he rode MX2 for Team USA in 2023. Haiden Deegan makes his debut for Team USA as well.

Netherlands

MXGP – Glenn Coldenhoff

MX2 – Kay de Wolf

Open – Calvin Vlaanderen

This is Coldenhoff’s 12th appearance for the Netherlands. Kay de Wolf makes his fourth appearance – de Wolf won the MX2 last year and is the favorite to do so again with Haiden Deegan banged up. Vlaanderen makes his fifth appearance for the Dutch.

Surprisingly, no Jeffrey Herlings for the Netherlands this year! Herlings went 1-1 at Ironman when raced the AMA series here in 2017.

Spain

MXGP – Ruben Fernandez

MX2 – Guillem Farres

Open – Francisco Garcia

Solid team here. Obligatory Prado Talk time…he is not on the team.

Guillem Farres returns to the MXoN for the first time since 2022 at Red Bud. Fracisco Garcia makes his debut.

France

MXGP – Romain Febvre

MX2 – Mathis Valin

Open – Maxime Renaux

This is Romain Febvre’s 6th time on Team France. Last year was the first time he didn’t win the event. He went 4 for 4 in his first four entries. Mathis Valin makes his team debut – no Tom Vialle in MX2 this year. Maxime Renaux won his class in both 2022 and 2023.

Germany

MXGP – Ken Roczen

MX2 – Simon Langenfelder

Open – Maximilian Spies

Ken Roczen makes his 9th appearance on Team Germany. Roczen has won his class 5 times – tied with Jeffrey Herlings for second all time. Stefan Everts is the leader with 6 class wins.

This is Langenfelder’s 6th straight year on Team Germany.

Slovenia

MXGP – Tim Gajser

MX2 – Jaka Peklaj

Open – Jan Pancar

This is the same team as last year for Slovenia. Tim Gajser went 1-1 last year. It is Gajser’s 7th time representing Slovenia. He could play a big spoiler for teams in the final outcome!

Italy

MXGP – Antonio Cairoli

MX2 – Andrea Adamo

Open – Andrea Bonacorsi

This is Cairoli’s 16th time on Team Italy! If Italy qualifies into the final (there is like a 99.99% chance this happens), Cairoli will be tied for 2nd all time in finals appearances with Max Nagl at 16. Tanel Leok leads with 22.