After two strong seasons in EMX250—culminating in a hard-fought third place in the championship last year—Dutch talent Cas Valk has finally stepped up to the MX2 World Championship full-time in 2025. Long considered one of the brightest prospects on the European scene, Valk has landed a solid opportunity with the returning Van Venrooy KTM squad, and he’s making the most of it so far this season. We caught up with Cas to talk about finally getting his shot in MX2, how things are going with the new-look team, adjusting to the intensity of the GPs, and how he’s adapted so well to every kind of track the calendar has thrown at him.
GateDrop: Cas, finally an MX2 GP rider full-time. How does it feel? Because we’ve been waiting a long time for you to finally get in this class and you finally got the opportunity. So how does it feel to be a full-time MX2 GP rider?
Valk: Yeah, it feels really nice. You always work to get eventually in the world championship. So when you reach the world championship in MX2 already then you are like, it’s another box ticked off. So yeah, really happy to finally be in MX2 and it’s going really good this year so far. So, even to be in MX2 and to be also riding good, it’s even better, you know. It’s like another box ticked off to ride finally in the MX2 world championship. I am looking forward to staying some years in the world championship.
GateDrop: You got the opportunity with Van Venrooy KTM. They weren’t in the paddock for a year and it’s kind of a new team because they’re focused on MX2 for the first time. I know you’re quite friendly with these guys in the past but how does it feel to finally ride for them and to ride for them in MX2 as well?
Valk: Yeah, it’s really nice to ride for them and especially also for Van Venrooy because last year he was sponsoring me and now I’m riding for his team. It’s really nice to ride for them and I never thought it would come this soon because they were always riding in the 450cc class in the past. So no, it’s really nice to do my first year of MX2 with them and maybe for more years in the future, we never know.
GateDrop: What’s the equipment like? I believe maybe a factory engine from last year, is that true? Or what can you tell me about the equipment? It seems pretty good.
Valk: Yeah, it’s the same as the factory engine.
GateDrop: As this year?
Valk: Yes, it’s the same factory engine what I used this year. So yeah, it’s fine and it’s working quite good.
GateDrop: You’re the only rider under the teams awning, does that add any pressure? Because at the end of the day you’re an MX2 GP rookie. A rookie year, you know, you’re not expected to win or anything like that but is there a little bit more pressure because you’re the only rider or for you does it not matter?
Valk: No, actually not. They put no pressure on me, they just want me to give my all. They want to see that I give my all and then the result is what it is then, you know. For sure it brings maybe a little bit extra pressure on you when you’re the only MX2 World Championship boy rider in the team. Of course, my sister (Lynn) is here at six races this year.
It’s nice to have my sister here in Lugo this weekend. It’s always nice to have someone extra in the team. It looks also a bit better under the big tent, like we have four bikes instead of two. It’s fine for me, not a big deal.
GateDrop: I was speaking to earlier and you told me the team are only located like 35 minutes, 40 minutes from where you live. So that’s quite good because, you know, if you sign for an Italian team or a Belgian team it means you have to move country. Is it nice to be able to live at home basically throughout the season?
Valk: Yeah, like actually it’s pretty nice to live at home. Like there is no better place than home to be honest. So yeah, I can do everything from home basically. Also, my physical program, what I do and everything from home. It makes it a lot more easy that the team is based very close to me. Sometimes we have to travel a bit because then we are training with Joel Smets and with the KTM group. So yeah, sometimes it’s still a bit of traveling for to go at the tracks but this is not every week. Most of my trainings during the year now I will do close to my home and with the team.
GateDrop: Obviously you’ve done a few MX2 GP’s in the past but only as a wildcard. You’d never done a flyaway before Argentina. How did it feel making that long travel to Argentina and then riding there and what was your first experience of the flyaway like? And it was new for everyone, it was obviously a new track. What was your thoughts on that? I thought it was pretty amazing to be fair.
Valk: It was a completely new experience for me. It’s like totally different. You fly for so long, the flight was pretty long. It was in total like a full day of travel. When we arrived there and we looed at the track, like track was looking amazing. Like very big jumps and just amazing, amazing track. Actually, it was a super cool weekend for my first overseas and to then directly do a third place in the first moto was a bit crazy. I was super happy with this, and it was an amazing experience to go there.
GateDrop: You raced EMX250 for two years but the format is very different. We’re already eight rounds into MX2 now, a lot more bike time. For you, is that not a problem or do you have to adjust things throughout the week maybe to save yourself because there’s so much bike time for MX2? You know, you’ve got free practice, time practice, a race just on Saturday and then a warmup before the two motos on Sunday…
Valk: No, for sure. I ride a bit less during the GP’s now than what I did when I was in the EMX because like on the Monday you feel it more like after an MX2 weekend than EMX250. In EMX on Sunday you ride only one moto and of course on Sunday here with the MX2 you ride three times, warm up and two motos and five minutes longer. It’s definitely more heavy, but I feel like the format is way better in MX2, like you have way more time to adapt to the track and make some changes if you need to. With EMX you don’t have so much, you need to be on it from the first day because it’s already 25 points what you otherwise can’t miss. So, it’s a big difference. You ride two times more on the track in the weekend and for me, I like it more in MX2.
GateDrop: In EMX250 last year, you were third, but you know it goes to show the results in EMX250 don’t always translate to MX2 because so far this year you’re doing the best out of all the guys that moved up. Are you surprised by that or did you see this coming because you know yourself after a winter how good you feel going into round one?
Valk: Yeah, of course last year we were pretty close with all three, like we were battling all year for the championship so it could have gone either way. It was not that one guy was much faster than the other so we were all pretty close. I know for myself that I’m quite consistent so yeah actually not so much surprised because I had a really good winter and I felt really good on the bike. It’s nice to be the best in the point standings to come up from EMX250 so yeah I’m happy with that for sure.
GateDrop: We’ve already had lots of different conditions this year already in MXGP, mud, a hard pack like Switzerland, and sand, maybe not really deep sand yet apart from Riola but you’ve been really consistent at every condition, pretty much top six. Are you happy that you’re able to show that speed at any type of track and do you not care what kind of track you race during the weekends anymore? Maybe when you were 12 or 13 you wanted to ride sand all the time but it’s different now?
Valk: For sure yeah, we had all kind of conditions already this year like proper hard pack track we had, we had deep sand, we had everything and big mud races. It’s good to show that I’m not only fast on the sand for example or in the mud but also on the hard pack tracks. I really improve every year more and more again and it’s going really good on all kind of different tracks so yeah really happy.
GateDrop: Was that something you looked at over winter? Did you do much hard pack riding or actually not so much?
Valk: We went to Italy to Rome in December last year and actually we did some good hard pack tracks riding there but not crazy much. In Sardinia also we did quite some hard pack riding but then also some sand tracks you know, Riola and Alghero. So, not specifically only hard pack tracks but I managed to get some good days in on some pretty tough hard pack tracks with some ruts and rocks. It definitely helps always to improve your skills on this kind of track.
GateDrop: Last year I know you rode a lot with Andrea Adamo and you were very close to him, do you still ride as much with him over winter and during the season or not as much as maybe last year?
Valk: Actually like this winter I rode more with them, and I try to be there always during the week. But now the last weeks it’s a little bit more difficult of course to be training always with them because it’s not always nice if you have a big travel from weekend to weekend that you need to travel also like two hours during the week to go to a track and to come back home. Then I stay sometimes a bit closer and they understand it, but I always have contact with Joel (Smets) but now I try to be as much as possible with them and so far this year I managed to be more with them than last year actually. The more times then the better, of course.
GateDrop: Last year I have to ask you about the British Championship, it went down to the final round, you were the young gun against Tommy Searle but just how was it racing that championship, something very different for you riding new tracks and riding in England. How did you find it all and obviously to win the title, you must have been happy?
Valk: It was really nice, actually. It was also a new experience with new tracks and pretty cool tracks. They weren’t all too rough, all the tracks, they were pretty easy sometimes so that made the racing pretty close. I found that it was a nice experience and to grab the title was even more nice and especially with one round to go it was pretty close with Tommy. He has a lot of experience on an MX2 bike, he knows how to ride the bike so now it’s definitely not easy to win it but it was a perfect last race of the year to go 1-1 to finish it off as champion.
