Moto3: Adrian Fernandez replaces Alonso Lopez in the Max Racing Team
Adrian Fernandez moves to the World Championship replacing Alonso Lopez in the Max Racing Team.
In a rather controversial and unconventional move, Adrian Fernandez moves to the World Championship at the expense of young talent Alonso Lopez for 2021. Fernandez is the brother of Moto3 race winner Raul Fernandez who moves to the Moto2 class for 2021 at the expense of Tetsuta Nagashima who has been forced to take a year off racing due to this replacement meaning both brothers have forced a rider out of a seat for them to be occupied.
This seems to be more and more common as money becomes more of a factor in racing than talent, the Fernandez brothers are both incredibly fast and have a lot of potential, this is common knowledge, but Nagashima is a Moto2 race winner who dipped in form later into the season and therefore him losing his seat was not a major surprise, however, Alonso Lopez is just 19 years old with bags of talent which includes a Moto3 world championship podium.
2 riders ride for the Max Racing Team with the other rider being Romano Fenati, a rider who has made some major mistakes in the past but has been able to do a U-turn and return to the sport which again was incredibly controversial. Out of Lopez and Fenati the latter is much older and will start the 2021 season at 25 years old meaning he is nearly the oldest rider in the class, he is one of the most winningest Moto3 riders but doesn’t have much left to prove in the class whereas Lopez has a lot of his career left to flourish as a rider and fight for a championship and move to Moto2 which is the normal path for any young rider.
Despite Fenati’s 2020 race win it would be more logical to keep the younger rider in the class and not the older rider who is approaching the Moto3 age limit of 28 years old.
It is believed that Fernandez has ties to Husqvarna which enabled him to gain this seat, plus putting in a rumoured €300,000 into the team also to secure his ride on the FR250 GP after coming through the ranks with the Laglisse team and scoring podiums in the CIV Moto3 championship aboard a Beon Moto3 bike also. The Max Racing Team are also set to receive a lump sum payment from Rockstar Energy drinks who will be one of their major sponsors for the 2021 Moto3 season.
We wish Fernandez the best of luck in 2021, he deserves a World Championship ride following a fantastic display at Portimao finishing in P18 on a bike he has never ridden with a team he did not know, however the way this has played out has tarnished the move somewhat.
Featured image – Husqvarna
