Brothers Nathan and Ben Watson will square up in the MXGP world championship next year. Younger brother Ben will be on a factory 450 Yamaha, as revealed recently.

And today, Nathan’s SR France Honda team revealed he will race MXGPs in 2021, despite initially being signed up to contest the French sand championship.

Nathan, who had a one-off ride at the Lommel GP for the team, will replace Jeremy Van Horebeek who split with the squad this week.

Team boss Josse Sallefranque said: ′′We had two wonderful seasons with Jeremy, with eighth place last year and a top ten this season in MXGP, not forgetting the title in (French) Elite and the podium at Touquet, as well as the podium in Argentina last year.

“We made a big leap when signing a former factory rider and we had to work like crazy to meet his expectations. Financially speaking Jeremy has a pretty high cost, for us it was really not easy given the situation to leave with him for a third season.

“In 2021 we’re going to invest even more in the sand with Nathan Watson, Lars Van Berkel and Richard Fura, while continuing our involvement in MXGP with Nathan and a second rider whose identity will be revealed in a few weeks.”

Nathan is a former Husqvarna MXGP rider who went to the enduro world championship on a factory KTM. He recently left the team to join the French Honda squad. And we caught up with him when he tested the 2021 Honda CRF450R recently.

Both Nathan and Ben have represented Britain in the MX of Nations but have never faced each other in the MXGP class.