COVID-19’s continuing influence on travel and public events meant that MXGP had to be flexible again in 2021, but the sport responded with one of the greatest contests in the 65-year history of the FIM Motocross World Championship

WORDS: ADAM WHEELER
PHOTOS: RAY ARCHER

Outside the press room in Mantova, Italy, for the 18th and final round of the protracted 2021 MXGP season, there is all sorts of commotion. Fans are pushing, shouting, singing. Inside, at one end of the head tables reserved for the riders and podium finishers, Romain Febvre sits alone. The Monster Energy Kawasaki man holds his head in his hands for a solid five minutes: thoughtful, exhausted, inconsolable. The fuss outside for new world champion Jeffrey Herlings and the retiring Tony Cairoli somewhere in the distance grows louder. In walks Tim Gajser, world #1 in 2019 and 2020, making the long trudge past all the workstations. The Honda HRC rider takes up a space toward the other end of the table. Two of the three principal protagonists in the closest and most gripping championship in the modern era—maybe of all time—sit staring into space, waiting. This is the calm after a tornado.