History tells that Tom Vialle understands how to earn championships, claiming double MX2 world titles and more recently becoming a two-time 250SX East winner. It’s only the AMA 250MX crown that eludes him, and for the Frenchman, 2025 is almost certainly his final chance to check that box.

Vialle, now 24 years of age and based in Florida, will transfer to the 450 class full-time next season – expected to find a position at Red Bull KTM for that next step, even if such a deal has not yet been formalized – after going back-to-back in the eastern division of Supercross at the Salt Lake City finals only two short weeks earlier.

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But the fact is, he was already planning on the upcoming Pro Motocross series to be his last aboard the 250 SX-F Factory Edition. For Vialle, being in his mid-20s and with little left to achieve otherwise, the time is right to keep up his progression after electing to follow his dreams to the United States a few short years ago rather than heading to the MXGP category in Europe.

“I actually think I was gonna move either way, if I was winning the title or not,” he mentioned this week in a media call arranged by KTM. “I mean, I feel like I’m getting older, but the plan was for sure to be in the 450 [class] next summer for the outdoors. Obviously we still didn’t know if I was going to race 250 or 450 for Supercross, but now we don’t have any other choice. Moving to the 450, the expectation, no-one knows, so that’s really exciting – we are going to see next year at the first race.”

While lacking outright dominance, Vialle has an understanding of what it takes to be there for the ultimate prize at season-end, even without fighting for victory on every single weekend. It’s that ingredient that has constantly enabled him to factor when it counts, this year only winning a single main event among six podiums across the 10-round series. Outdoors, he’s won a single overall per season so far – Southwick in 2023 and Ironman’s finale in 2024.

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“It’s pretty tough to explain, but I think that you can look at it two different ways, and I feel like that’s also how I won my championships in Europe,” he suggested. “I just feel like you don’t need to be the fastest guy every weekend to win the championships. Of course, you need to be there, and I feel like I’d been fighting for a win a couple times in Daytona, where I’ve finished really close to the win. The following weekend in the first East/West Showdown, I was really close again… I’ve been fighting all year long, training hard during the off-season, and yeah, I feel like the feel we’ve all been so close together.”

Its the elusive Pro Motocross Championship that has surprisingly been tougher to adapt to since he arrived in America for the 2023 season, finishing sixth as a rookie and then improving to second last year, but almost 70 points behind eventual champion Haiden Deegan. It’s not been an easy move from Europe to the US by any means, especially with the single-day race schedule and vastly different tracks that the Americans are largely at home on.

“That’s my main goal this summer – I really want to fight for the title,” Vialle said. “I feel like last year I finished second, but I wasn’t really in the fight. I was fighting from afar, I would say, so this year the aim is to be a lot closer. I feel like when I moved, my first year in 2023 it was tough to learn the tracks, because the day goes really quick.

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“It’s only a couple of laps in the morning and then you go straight to the motos and it’s a way different approach than we had in Europe. Now, two years later, I feel way better. I know exactly, for example, this weekend in Pala I’ll know how the track is going to develop.

“I’m a lot stronger – both physically and mentally – than those last two years and I’m really looking forward to it, that it’s gonna be my last 250 outdoor season, pretty much in my career. I won those two titles in Europe and now Supercross, I’ve won twice… pretty much the [AMA] outdoor title is the only one that I miss in my 250 career. That would be a dream to achieve that, so I’m really excited and I’m really looking forward to the summer.”

While he’s also the current number two in the SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX) rankings, it would appear that for Vialle, adding the 250MX trophy to his cabinet once and for all is the ultimate target to cap-off this chapter of his story. And for a rider who arrived from the grand prix paddock less than three years ago, it only makes sense. Now, it’s on him to execute against one of the fiercest 250 champions of his generation in Deegan.