Josiah Natzke: Honda's MX1 challenger
Third in 2025 and runner-up in 2026, he's the best of the rest in MX1.
By ROOST New Zealand desk · 17 October 2026
Every championship needs a rider who keeps the pressure on, and for the last two seasons in MX1 that rider has been Josiah Natzke.
Natzke came back to New Zealand racing in 2025 as what BikesportNZ called a "returned Kiwi international", and he didn't waste any time getting going. He won the first moto at Pukekohe in Round 3 and took the overall round victory there. That was the only round of the 2025 MX1 series that Maximus Purvis didn't win, apart from the finale, which went to Hamish Harwood. Natzke ended the year third overall on 257 points, only 18 points off the title.
In 2026, riding for Honda Motul Racing New Zealand, he went one better and finished second overall. Purvis was in a class of his own that year, but Natzke was the best of the rest across a series that started in Invercargill and Balclutha and ended in Tauranga and Rotorua. In the Rotorua finale he took third on the day behind Purvis and Kyle Webster.
That consistency makes him the obvious candidate to take the fight to the Yamaha camp in the next season. He's on factory-supported Honda equipment and has international experience, and he's now finished on the national podium in back-to-back seasons.
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