The first rounds of the 2026 Italian Assoluti and Spanish Enduro Championships brought EnduroGP World Championship riders out of winter hibernation and into action alongside each other – Enduro21 picks the bones and talks to the riders after their first international date of the season.

The start of the 2026 world enduro season brings with it a lot of talking points. Since we last saw them in action last October, a long list of riders have returned from injury, switched race teams and classes or a combination of all the above. Winter always drags on but for some of these guys it has been a much longer road back to cable tying a transponder on their bikes.

Those riders include Steve Holcombe, Brad Freeman, Matteo Cavallo and Nathan Watson all back from injury. We see new riders in Sherco, Fantic, Honda RedMoto, and Red Bull KTM and they are just the tip of the iceberg.

With everyone seemingly split into two camps of ‘as you were’ and ‘seeing how it goes’, Enduro21 takes a look and weighs up how they stack against each other at this first weekend of ‘26.

Ominous start from Pichon

Start as you mean to go on, right? That must be the mentality in the TM Boano camp and in particular for  Zach Pichon who came out the blocks like a 100m sprinter.

The absolute rule for the top guys in the world right now is you have to be on it but make no mistakes – it’s the benchmark by which GPs are won and which took Josep Garcia to the title again last year – and Pichon started his ’26 season very much in this vein.

The Frenchman looks up for it based on a winning margin of 40 seconds across 17 tests on day one of the Assoluti Italian series. The Italian series round one featured a lot of short tests by world championship standards but still, to gap your rivals by that much is impressive on the first day back at school.

Like Garcia, Pichon has the luxury of staying with the same team and TM 300 Fi bike this season and that means he has only had to worry about getting better over winter. Things are working from a team perspective too with Jarno Boano’s squad managing team Pichon and aiming for a world title to match their Italian one.

Garcia away at sea

Josep Garcia wasn’t at his team’s home enduro series in Italy but instead raced his own national series at the weekend, which began in Valverde del Camino, Spain. The truth is it was an easy win for Josep with his rivals all across the Mediterranean in Italy and he romped to some huge margins ahead of 2025 Spanish title winner, Antoine Magain.

Rewind one year and KTM rider had a broken collarbone which meant he missed the start of the Spanish enduro season and had question marks around him approaching the EnduroGP round one.

Ultimately it allowed Sherco’s Magain to claim the Spanish National Enduro crown, not undeservedly. But the rest is history as they say with Garcia coming back from that set-back to record perhaps his greatest season.

With the monkey off his back and the overall title finally in 2024, the Josep seemingly rode with more freedom in 2025 and no-one had an answer.  

Garcia wasn’t lined up against any of his championship rivals, it is fair to say, but his winning margins – nearly three minutes on day two in “the Cathedral of Enduro”, Valverde del Camino – was food for thought for the other boys as the champ arrives in much better shape and aiming at a third-straight title.

Ying and yang for Holcombe

Back across the blue waters of the Med and this was the first time we saw Steve Holcombe on a blue bike alongside his rivals with his boot and helmet on. The new Sherco signing has clocked up some races in recent months, taking wins in Sardegna and the UK as he gets up to speed on the 300 two-stroke.

It’s the old deceptive trick some riders have to not look fast when they are actually fastest and Steve’s looking very much in that mould on the SE 300 Sherco.

Steve’s weekend didn’t start favourably with a mechanical problem on day one which meant a DNF after two tests. The CH Racing team fixed it but Holcombe had to start fresh on Sunday morning while his rivals already had their eyes dialled into the tests after day one.

Having only walked the tests and with them beaten into a different shape by the end of day one, it was a tall order to come in fresh on day two: “I’m happy to finally start the Italian championship.” Said Holcombe on Sunday night. “The Super Test went ok and day one we had a bit of a freak electrical issue which caused the bike to run hot and unfortunately stopped in the second test.

“It was tough coming into day two having not ridden the tests. I walked all the specials but it’s not the same and I didn’t have the same flow. So, I struggled to get into it because of that because you’re always behind without the same knowledge which lines are good and which are bad.

“I rode a little bit tight and I wouldn’t say at my best but at least I can look at the results and see where I am. I can see there are things I can improve myself and with the bike.

“It was really important to come do the first race, see where we are, see how everything’s working, and have a good first race with the team. The guys were obviously pretty gutted with the problem on day one but this is our sport and mechanical things can happen. We used our joker card there but I’m really looking forward to getting back and working on the areas that we can improve and keeping the ball rolling in round two.”

Hello Brad, nice to see you’re still alive!

Another rider, in whole fact team making a positive return to racing is Beta and riders Brad Freeman and Nathan Watson. It felt weird not to have the Beta factory team at the second half EGP season last year as both Freeman and Watson hit the sidelines and literally went off the radar.

In Brad’s case no-one seemingly heard from him for months while he recovered from knee surgery but we’re glad to see he’s still on planet earth and happy to be back.

Brad answered any critics who wondered if he would have the speed after such a long time off the bike, despite his last competitive race being the final GP of 2024 in France.

It helps having some fast mates to train with as you get back to fitness and having Watson as a teammate, as well as a gang of British riders like Jamie McCanney, means Freeman arrives in good shape.

“It’s nice to be back.” Says Brad. “Apart from the one day in Portugal (2025 day one riding with only one knee basically), the last race I did properly was France ’24 so it’s been a loooong time.

“I felt a bit rusty yesterday, but it felt good to be back and I won a few tests but to be honest the result isn’t that important. It was about trying to get back in the flow. I won some tests and I was leading the overall on day two until I made a mistake and lost almost a minute.

“The most important thing is the feeling is quite good and we’ve got a couple of weeks now until Sicily, so we’ll try and get a bit better and be ready for it.”

Double time for Cavallo

Another rider surely as much relived as happy with his riding is Matteo Cavallo. The TM rider added to the Boano joy on Sunday night as he bagged an overall podium alongside teammate Pichon.

In case you didn’t know Matteo is another rider (along with Holcombe and Freeman to name two) who underwent knee surgery but the Italian having not one but both knees operated upon. We can only imagine the doubt a rider has to be able to come back.

Cavallo went 5-3 scratch across the two days in Viareggio to match the other guys and though the Italian tests are different to the world championship, he’s definitely thrown his hat into the ring.

More homework needed

Among the riders with a bit of homework to do after this opening Italian race (there’s more than one) was the former world and Italian champion, Andrea Verona. Things looked good for the new Red Bull KTM rider, who’s switched to formally be parked alongside Josep Garcia in the EnduroGP team.

Pre-season testing was good and the Andrea told us he had adapted quickly to the PDS-type chassis set-up on his 450 EXC-F.

Despite a win on the Friday Super test on the beach, Saturday’s 12 tests resulted in Verona 40 seconds off the Pichon’s total time as he says he struggled with feeling as the tests got rougher.

Sunday was a different story though following overnight changes to bike set-up which brought the super-close times for the top five we’ve become used to seeing (see results below).

“It’s been a good first weekend on the new bike.” Andrea told us. “In the end I would say it is an average result with second overall Saturday and fourth overall on Sunday. I started with good times on Saturday morning but I struggled finding a good flow in the rough tests. Then we made some changes overnight and we improved the feedback and the feeling and the speed was better.

“I’m happy about the improvements and for sure these races are really helpful for us to understand where we are with the new bike and to understand how to move forward before the world championship.

“Now it’s two weeks off and we will test again before the next Italian championship, and we will use that as a test again before we go to the world championship.”

A few riders were already off the pace – we think to be a minute or more off the leader counts as “off the pace” without wishing to sound harsh. We won’t name names here but look down the time sheets and the clock stopped a lot later for some than we expected.

Italian Enduro Rnd 1 results:

Italian Enduro Rnd 2 results:

* Full results are here: italianoenduro.ficr.it

Photo Credit: Future7Media | Andrea Belluschi