With eight rounds of the 2025 MXGP World Championship now complete, Davide De Carli’s Factory KTM team has shown both speed and steady progress across the board. Lucas Coenen’s explosive form has turned heads—bouncing back from a pre-season crash to become the youngest overall winner in MXGP history—while Simon Längenfelder continues to demonstrate consistency and a growing hunger to finally clinch a world title. Meanwhile, Sacha Coenen, despite a few challenging GPs, is beginning to rediscover his early-season spark. We caught up with De Carli to get his thoughts on the standout performances so far, the development of each rider under his awning, and much more.
GateDrop: So, Davide, we’re eight rounds in and maybe at the start of the season Lucas had a little bit of learning to do and especially with the big crash before the start of the season but he’s obviously a very quick learner… It seems whenever he starts to win in a class, he can’t stop so you must be happy with the big progress he’s made so far…
De Carli: Yeah of course I’m really really happy. I always was the first to believe that Lucas can do a really good in the MXGP class. Actually, the class is not so easy because you have many great champions in the class and many riders have a lot of years already in the class so they have a lot of experience. He used the first races as a learning mode and was working quite well. Then finally he got the first podium in France and then we went to Riola. You could see that he was coming because in Riola he was already really fast in the first moto before the crash otherwise he could have won the GP. Everything was going really well after Riola and in Switzerland he finally put everything together and won both motos on Sunday. So actually, it’s quite good what he’s doing until now. I think the key is to be consistent as much as possible and collect the points every weekend.
GateDrop: He’s the youngest ever overall winner of an MXGP World Championship overall, that’s an unbelievable achievement and also for you as a team you must be very proud of him…
De Carli: Yeah, of course, I’m really proud. As I said before me and my Dad, we were the first to believe in this project, the 450cc project. So now it’s the time to continue like this and try to make it happen. But of course he goes down in history, he’s really young. If you imagine he’s only 18 years old and he’s really skilful for his age.
GateDrop: He’s been very very smooth for the last two rounds. The last two GP’s we hardly seen a mistake from him and the tracks were pretty brutal. So, are you trying to help him with his style and keep him smooth? It’s not quite Jorge Prado or Jett Lawrence yet but he’s getting there…
De Carli: Actually, if you think we went through very difficult tracks like Switzerland – that was very technical. Especially on Saturday he was struggling a lot with the arm pump but then we used that rest day because we didn’t race on Sunday. We used that rest day as we had some meetings. We changed something on the bike, and we helped him to understand how to improve for the next day. That was working quite well the day after. So, we went to Portugal which was also a difficult track but we did really well.
GateDrop: Both of the Coenen’s they’re very energetic. During a week do they like to ride a lot? I believe they like to ride maybe three or four times a week… Maybe sometimes you have to calm them down and say two is enough or are you happy with what they’re doing?
De Carli: I don’t like to force the guys. I mean if the guys want to train, if the guys want to enjoy, they need to enjoy because they need to stay happy all the season and this is really important. They need to enjoy the racing, and I want to see happy faces during the weekends.
GateDrop: Just on Simon Längenfelder, really really consistent and even today with the crash in the first moto he almost salvaged the podium… I don’t think he was too far off it. He rode a lot better in the second moto. Are you happy with what he’s doing so far this year? He’s still in this championship chase!
De Carli: Yeah, of course. Simon is a really good rider. We all believe that he can win the championship because Simon has everything. He has us behind him, to try and support him as much as possible until the end. He is experienced in the class. It’s true that he finished third three times in a row in the championship. So, he wants the title, and we want the title. We will give everything until the end to get the title.
GateDrop: For me anyway looking from the outside it looks like his mentality is different this year. You know in the past if he got a podium, he would have been happy, he smiles. But I noticed that in France in the press conference he got a podium and he didn’t really look that happy. Is that good that we’re seeing maybe seeing the mentality change that he wants to win all the time? Or maybe you disagree? Maybe he was like that all the time?
De Carli: No, no, you are right. You can see on his face that this year he really wants this win. So, of course when he doesn’t win, he’s not happy. He will try every weekend to be on the top of the box.
GateDrop: Just on Sacha he had a few not amazing GPs. Did he have an injury or anything like that? Or was he not 100%?
De Carli: No, I mean with Sacha, he had a great start to the season, let’s say. In Argentina, he won the second moto, and he showed everyone that he was one of the best riders in the class because he was gone. Lately in the season we had a few difficult GP’s and he had a few crashes. It was mainly in France when he had a few crashes. After that it was a bit like a chain reaction. You need a little bit of time to recover and stuff like this. Maybe he had some pain but then lately we are working hard, and you can see the results. Also, last weekend he showed up with some good improvements. Here at this track in Lugo which was really difficult he could almost win the GP. You can see Sacha is coming back and personally I really believe in Sascha. I was one of the first to believe in Sacha. I was always watching him since he was racing the 85cc, I was always looking at Sascha. I like so much his style of riding and I believe that he can be a champion in the future.
GateDrop: I was going to ask you about his style actually… It’s a joy to watch and especially if he gets a start. He’s probably the fastest guy in the first 10 minutes. It’s really good to watch, He’s very technical too but maybe towards the end sometimes he runs out of steam a little bit but that will probably just come with experience…
De Carli: I think he’s one of the nicest guys to watch riding because the style is just so nice and how he uses the bike. He has a lot of technique, and he rides really really good with the bike. You can see today he got a good start and when he has a good start and he leads he tries to push and put a gap in at the front. Today he got the gap out to nearly 15 seconds, so he was the fastest today but then he had a crash and lost the front. Otherwise maybe he could win the GP.
GateDrop: There’s a lot more orange in the paddock this year. Are you happy to see the KTM under the awning again and I believe you’ve got a contract with KTM for next year to run the team also?
De Carli: Yeah, we are looking for a strong future with KTM. The goal now is to show up in a big orange group, let’s say. We are really looking forward to bringing more world titles for the group in the future.
