When five-time World motocross champion Tim Gajser drove up the inside of four-time AMA champion, Jett Lawrence to win the final moto of a sensational Monster Energy Motocross of Nations back in October, we all knew a long off-season awaited us. For a motocross fan, the following five months is tough.

On that day at Matterley Basin, our sport closed the door on the 2024 season in the most exciting and adrenaline filled pass, some even say the greatest pass in the sports history, but lets leave that one out, as since 1957, when the World motocross championships began, we have seen some pretty impressive passes.

That pass though didn’t just cause the internet to go into overdrive, but it also was the perfect end for the 2024 season of Tim Gajser, who, just a week earlier had lost the MXGP World championship to Jorge Prado 996 points to 986 points in the MXGP of Spain. It was the second cruel blow for Gajser in championship battle, as he had also lost the 2021 MXGP championship to Jeffrey Herlings, again, in the final round of the series, but this time 708 points to Herlings and 688 points to Gajser.

Despite having five World titles, and 49 Grand Prix victories, Gajser remains one of the hungriest riders in the sport when it comes to wanting success. He isn’t crunching the numbers like Stefan Everts and Jeffrey Herlings did in their careers. He doesn’t really care if he has five World titles or 10, he just wants to win, win and win some more. Hell, he didn’t even know he has the chance of passing legendary Belgian, Joel Roberts in the all-time list if he wins this year.

Robert of course has six World titles and 50 Grand Prix victories and since a round 12 GP victory by Robert in 1972, when he picked up his 50th GP win and also his sixth World title, the name Robert was on top of all the motocross statistics, until another Belgian legend, Stefan Everts broke both records at the start of this century.

Numbers one and two in that all-time list are Stefan Everts and Antonio Cairoli, with 10 and 9 World titles and 101 and 94 GP wins respectively. Gajser could move to third place with a World title this year and for the sport of motocross, with the long, long history it has, that is pretty impressive.

Gajser though, isn’t looking at anyone’s record, not even his own, he just wants to go out and put on the best performance he can. No big celebration, no big parties, or reminding everyone how great he is, just enjoying himself and making people around him smile. He will just head back home to Slovenia, put the trophies away and work harder to be better, year after year, after year.

Considered by many as one of the nicest guys in the MXGP paddock and a rider who likes to race clean and have respect for his rivals, a better World motocross champion you couldn’t ask for and it is little surprise, he entered next weekends MXGP of Argentina as a heavy favourite, not to only win the 2025 opener, but to also win the 2025 MXGP title and add to his 49 GP wins.

Since arriving on the Grand Prix scene in 2012, with a 30th place finish, a Grand Prix in Faenza, Italy, where his 31-28 performance left nobody wondering who this young kid was, he has mastered every single challenge the sport has thrown at him.

That same year, he finished eight in the EMX250 championship, and while his performance in the Czech Republic round with a 3-2 overall result was a highlight for Gajser, it still wasn’t good enough to beat Mel Pocock, who would go on to be crowned EMX250 champion and picked up 2-1 results that day.

Nobody was waiting for Tim Gajser to arrive on the MX2 scene and factory teams sure didn’t have his name on their wanted list. His 2011 runner-up spot in the 2011 EMX125cc championship behind Simone Zecchina was also not getting anyone excited. Tim Gajser was making that tough journey through the pyramid system, that Infront had put together to help riders improve at a rate that would help them later in their career. That part of the journey, Gajser made the most of.

Even that first World motocross championship in 2015 was something of a gift, as series leader, Jeffrey Herlings went out injured in Germany. At the time, Gajser was second in the championship, some 100 points behind the Dutchman. What that German Grand Prix did offer though, was Gajser’s second GP victory. He had beaten Herlings in Trentino on April 19, and in many ways, this was his first real showing, that this kid from Slovenia, might have had something for the future. He had a little more than just something, didn't he?

Sure enough, those wins in Trentino and Teutschenthal proved to be the start of what we are seeing now. His confidence grew, and with that came one championship after another. Winning his debut season in MXGP in 2016 and beating the great Antonio Cairoli by nearly 100 points.

From those 2015 and 2016 World championships, he has added titles in 2019, 2020 and 2022. In 2019, he won the championship with a 202-point gap over second placed man Jeremy Seewer, in 2020 the gap was 102 points, with again Seewer the second placed rider and in 2022 it was a 106-point gap, again to Seewer in second. When Gajser wins title, he wins them with ease, when his confidence is up, he is very, very hard to beat.

Coming into this year, the general feeling must be, that he has a huge advantage over his rivals and with Jeffrey Herlings likely to miss the next month or two, that heavy roll of favourite sits firmly on the shoulders of the HRC factory rider. He has suffered under pressure in 2021 in Mantova and 2024 in Corza, losing out by a handful of points on both occasions, but when Tim Gajser is on and his confidence is high, then, he is near unbeatable.

I find it hard to bet against him in 2025 and his performance in Argentina this coming weekend and in the rounds following, in Corza, St Jean d’Angely, Riola Sardo and Trentino will show us are we getting an easy run to championship number six, or will names like Romain Febvre, Maxime Renaux, Lucas Coenen. Jeremy Seewer, Calvin Vlaanderen and eventually Jeffrey Herlings make his life tough in 2025?

Bavo Swijgers images