The 2022 MXGP World Motocross Championship has been claimed with two rounds still remaining as Honda HRC’s Tim Gajser rode to a steady sixth place finish at Sunday’s MXGP of Finland to clinch the championship. As Monster Energy Yamaha MXGP’s Jeremy Seewer is 104 points down of the Slovenian, it is impossible for him to catch Gajser even if Gajser were to just not score any more points this year. As such, Gajser has now claimed his fourth MXGP title and his third in just the last four years.
It's easy to discount what Gajser has been able to accomplish this year as both Jeffrey Herlings and Romain Febvre – who each pushed the 2021 MXGP title race to the final round before Herlings won his second title – were injured before the season started. Herlings never returned to the gate for 2022 after breaking his foot in a photoshoot requiring multiple surgeries. Febvre broke his leg at the 2021 Paris Supercross and only just returned to racing at the German Grand Prix six rounds ago. Ultimately, Gajser ended up winning the first three Grand Prix of 2022 and systematically opened up a massive championship lead to claim the title once again with several rounds remaining.
It doesn’t matter who was or wasn’t there this year or any year before that, what matters is that Gajser has been there. For a rider who earned the nickname “Gumby” due to his spectacular crashes early in his MXGP career, Gajser has developed into one of the most dependable MXGP talents ever. He has now competed in 89 consecutive Grand Prix’s dating back to the 2018 MXGP of Argentina when he missed the opening round that year after fracturing his jaw in a preseason race. The gritty Slovenian only missed that one race as he returned for the MXGP of The Netherlands just two weeks later. The dependability and tenacity to always try to line up on the gate no matter what the circumstances, has now culminated into Gajser’s fourth MXGP title.
Four titles in the premier World Championship classification is rare. With his fourth title, Gajser has now entered an exclusive list of just nine riders who have four premier class titles to their name. He’s also just the third person to accomplish the feat since the now named MXGP class was established in 2003. Before that, seven other riders in the prior 46 years of the World Championship also were able to rack up four premier titles, but any rider doing so before then was able to do so in either the 250cc or 500cc classes.
Gajser also became just the fourth rider who was not of Belgian nationality to accomplish the feat. Stefan Everts, Joel Robert, Roger De Coster, Joel Smets, and Georges Jobe are the five Belgians who have four or more premiere class titles to their credit. Stefan Everts, of course, has nine premier titles but his record is all over the board as what constituted the “premier class” when he raced was ever changing. Everts has two titles in the 500cc class, three titles in the 250cc class, one MXGP title, and three MX1 titles. Behind that, Antonio Cairoli has five MX1 titles and two MXGP titles to compile seven premier class titles to his resume. Robert won six 250cc titles, De Coster won five 500cc titles, while Smets and Jobe also each won five titles between the 650cc, 500cc, and 250cc classes respectively.
Gajser joins Finnish rider Heikki Mikkola (three 500cc titles and one 250cc title) and Sweden’s Thorsten Hallman (four 250cc titles) as the three other riders who have won four premier class World Championships. He also joins perhaps an even rarer list though as Gajser’s MX2 crown from 2015 brings his total World Championships to five of which only nine riders have been able to accomplish as well. Mikkola and Hallman only won four while Eric Geboers and Jeffrey Herlings (still active) have won five titles as well. It really doesn’t matter which way you slice it though, Gajser’s resume has landed him with the all-time greats.
He has more World Championships than Harry Everts, Paul Friedrichs, Andre Malherbe, David Thorpe, Greg Albertyn, and so on. What Gajser has been able to do that is truly the hardest part of winning championships is build a platform of sustained success. He’s done this all rather quietly too because he’s sharing the limelight with Jeffrey Herlings who may go down as one of the fastest riders to ever race in MXGP and is only two Grand Prix victories behind Stefan Everts for the all-time lead. When you compare Herlings’ 99 Grand Prix wins to Gajser’s now 43 total, it’s easy to say that Herlings is faster. But faster isn’t always better and Gajser has now consistently proven he knows what it takes to win these championships.
His 43 Grand Prix wins is nothing to sneeze at either, as he was able to climb into sixth all-time this year on the Grand Prix winners list. He leapfrogged Roger De Coster, Thorsten Hallman, Yves Demaria, Mickael Pichon, and Eric Geboers just this year alone to nestle into sixth just seven Grand Prix wins behind Joel Robert for a spot inside the top five.
Another thing to consider with Gajser is he has essentially single-handedly put his native Slovenia on the map for motocross. A small Slavic nation just south of Austria that split into a sovereign state in 1991 after decades of being part of Yugoslavia, Gajser has ignited the nation. His fans follow him everywhere and particularly fill the hillsides at the closest Grand Prix to the nation, when MXGP goes to Pietramurata in Italy. Given that Gajser’s success is still so recent, we may not see how much his impact is felt in Slovenia until we see that next generation of talent coming though, but even riders like MX2 standout Jan Pancar are proof that Slovenia has become a bit more of a motocross nation throughout the years.
It's important to emphasize all of this so that Gajser’s accomplishments are not swept under the rug. What the 25-year-old has accomplished is a rare feat and it’s even rarer when you realize he comes from a historically stagnant motocross nation. Gajser will be 26 in just a few weeks and still appears to be the ripe young talent he was when he took MX2 and MXGP by storm back in 2015 and 2016. Time will tell if he’s able to move to the top five all time in wins or higher up on the list of legends he’s already around with his championship tally. But even if Gajser decides he’s had enough tomorrow and walks away, he will forever be a legend in motocross.
