French countryman Frederic Bolley succeeded to Tortelli in 1999 and 2000 winning two consecutive 250cc Titles. With new generation four stroke machines becoming popular in the GP campaign in 1999 came the first World Title. Yamaha mounted Andrea Bartolini was the first rider to win a Championship with such a machine beating Joel Smets, the 500cc Title winner in the previous two years and also in 2000.
2001-2006 Youthstream celebrates Stefan Everts and the new generation during the years of records. Women and Veterans racing dedicated series. The last years have seen Motocross develop very quickly courtesy of the professional work of new promoter Youthstream headed by President Giuseppe Luongo, a man who had been involved in Motocross since 1983. Youthstream took the World Motocross Championships and the Motocross of Nations to the next level as the series increased the visits overseas and benefitted from a strong TV and media coverage. Nowadays the riders involved in the Championships come from more than 30 different nations, the races are watched onsite by more than half a million spectators, as the number of TV viewers overtakes one billion. In 2004 the classes were renamed. The 125cc was called MX2 and is now hosting mainly 250cc four stroke bikes. The 250cc class was renamed MX1 hosting 450cc four stroke machines as the former 500cc class became an open class, the MX3. The professional set up was matched by excellent racing and new talents going through the ranks such as Steve Ramon, Ben Townley, Antonio “Tony” Cairoli, Tyla Rattray, Tommy Searle just to name a few. Though this decade will be remembered for the breakthrough of Stefan Everts. The Belgian went on to take his 10th World Title and his 101st GP victory in 2006, his last year of professional racing before retiring and becoming Team Manager for the factory KTM Motocross Team. Everts set the records, which are now the ultimate challenge of the whole younger generations of professional Motocross racers.
2007-2016 The youngsters leave their mark on the FIM Motocross World Championship. Philippaerts, Cairoli, Desalle, Musquin, Roczen, Herlings, Febvre, Gajser and many more set the Championship on fire. These years the young guns of the FIM Motocross World Championship have established their authority on the series. Ramon succeeded to Everts in the MX1 series in 2007 after the season’s dominator Coppins was taken out by a shoulder injury. Italian Cairoli took back the MX2 Title, as 2006 World Champion Pourcel was unable to defend the crown due to an up and down season which ended in a severe back injury.
to ride the revolutionary KTM 350cc on which the Italian claimed his fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth World Titles in six consecutive years. The Italian is breaking all the records, and continues to do so as he has won seventy-two Grand Prix’s and sits second on the list of most Grand Prix wins, twenty nine behind ‘The King’ Stefan Everts. In the MX2, young German talent Ken Roczen joined KTM and obtained his maiden World Title in 2011 in front of his home crowd in Gaildorf, Germany. The talented German also wrote his name in the motocross history of his country before moving to the USA to live his American dream. With Roczen gone, 2012 and 13 have been dominated by Dutch phenomenon Jeffrey Herlings. At the ripe age of eighteen, Herlings has already added two FIM MX2 World Titles to his list of career achievements, which he obtained with two near perfect seasons. 2014 saw Herlings line-up for his third consecutive MX2 World Title with his main goal being to win every Grand Prix. In 2014 Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Antonio Cairoli continued to chip away at Stefan Everts ten FIM Motocross World Championship titles taking title number eight in Trindade, Brazil. Jeremy Van Horebeek also stamped his name on the championship as the most consistent rider in the MXGP class banking eleven consecutive podium finishes. After missing the podium at round 13 in Finland, the Belgian bounced back at round 14 in the Czech Republic to take home his first ever MXGP class win. The twentyfour year old finished the season as the vice MXGP world champion. While the racing in 2014 was amazing, all attention had already turned to 2015 with the championship expected to blow all other seasons out of the water. In 2015 MXGP’s talent pool is deeper than ever especially with the arrival of American legend, multi-time AMA supercross and motocross champion, Ryan Villopoto. Villopoto is the first American with a résumé as rich as his to make the transition from the AMA series’ to the FIM Motocross World Championship. 2014 produced one of the best seasons of MX2 racing the championship is yet to witness, starting with young French star Dylan Ferrandis’ win of one race at round one in Qatar. The on-watchers were shocked, to say the least, that the usual dominating force Jeffrey Herlings appeared weaker than he had over the previous two seasons. The Dutch sensation Herlings then went on to admit he was recovering from a leg injury. After not getting off to the greatest of starts, which allowed the likes of Arnaud Tonus to claim his first ever MX2 round win and Glenn Coldenhoff to take his first ever race win, things went from bad to worst for the two-time FIM MX2 World Champ Herlings when he broke his femur racing for charity right on the heels of wrapping up his third consecutive FIM MX2 World Championship. With Herlings out MX2 became 100% unpredictable, each race was intense from start to finish and each first time win for riders such as Jordi Tixier, Romain Febvre, Max Anstie and Tim Gajser was hard fought and earned.
After two years of team management, Stefan Everts celebrated the first World Title with Tyla Rattray winning the MX2 World Championship in 2008. That was also the year David Philippaerts won his maiden World Title in the MX1 despite it being only his second year in contention.
In a heroic effort to clinch the title despite suffering from an unhealed broken femur, Herlings who had won twelve of the thirteen Grand Prix he contested was forced to settle for second with only four valuable points separating himself and his Red Bull KTM Factory Racing teammate Jordi Tixier. Tixier on the other hand used his ‘never give up’ attitude to silence his critics, bounce back from a dip and win his first ever FIM Motocross World Championship in impressive style.
Year by year the level and speed that Grand Prix riders ride at progresses and now the most skilled ones are aiming to beat the older generations’ records. In 2010 Cairoli decided
It was expected to be epic and the 2015 FIM Motocross World Championship didn’t fail to deliver, in terms of being the best season of racing ever.
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