MotoGP: 2022 rookie profile – Remy Gardner

Moto2 World Champion Remy Gardner follows in his father’s footsteps joining MotoGP.

Despite being the son of 1987 500cc World Champion Wayne Gardner, Remy Gardner hasn’t exactly had an easy ride to the top despite his surname holding a lot of weight.

Remy has had it pretty tough, he’d raced uncompetitive machinery, slow machinery and even bikes that were three years old and after so many years of working and pushing himself, he can finally call himself a world champion.

Like many riders, Remy came through the Spanish ranks in the CEV Repsol championship after moving from his native Australia at a young age with his brother Luca who also aspired to be a motorcycle racer, Luca eventually opted to end his career at a young age leaving Remy to defend the Gardner name.

CEV Moto3 days on the Calvo KTM. 

Remy was a Junior Moto3 rider back in 2012 and made his debut in the CEV Moto3 class at the minimum age limit of 14, staying there for three seasons and scoring one podium in 2014 for the Calvo squad on the KTM, he also made his Moto3 World Championship debut in 2014 and completed three races scoring a point at Malaysia. These results caught the eye of the CIP Team who hired Remy to ride their Mahindra Moto3 machine for the 2015 season in the world championship, as we know, the Mahindra was not competitive by any means and Remy finished outside of the points all season long aside from his home race at Phillip Island when he picked up a P10 finish.

By this time his height and weight had meant that he’d grown out of the Moto3 bike and needed a Moto2 seat, he originally had signed to race in Moto2 for 2016 but the team he signed for collapsed and he was sent back to the CEV in the Moto2 series on a Kalex, he would prove to be fast incredibly quickly improving his results race by race before winning the 6th race of the season at Catalunya, this result lined up perfectly with the Tasca Racing Team splitting with rider Alessandro Tonucci and opened the doors for Gardner to step in.

Gardner’s first win on a Moto2 bike, CEV Moto2 at Catalunya. 

In his Moto2 World Championship debut Remy scored the team their first points of the season on a three-year-old Kalex, the team were impressed and hired Remy for the rest of the year, he brought with him the sponsors from the CEV and his European championship run ended with his win at Catalunya. He scored points on two more occasions that year in Moto2 with a best of P12 in Sachsenring and was picked up by the Tech3 team to race their Mistral 610 machine for 2017 and 2018.

Once again Remy was on a less than ideal bike, he’d raced a Mahindra, a three-year-old Kalex and now the Mistral 610 that hadn’t registered a podium since Mugello 2011. Despite this Remy was competitive on the bike and scored regular points during his two years with the team and even got a front row start at Silverstone 2018, unfortunately unable to show his talents as the race was cancelled the following day.

These two years of character building exercises eventually got Remy a seat back on a Kalex in the SAG squad for 2019 on a two-year deal, Remy now had the kit to be able to battle further up the field and this showed in his results nearly doubling his tally from the year previous and taking his first Moto2 podium in Argentina, he had the stride in his step and looked incredibly promising now on the Kalex.

Parc Ferme at Silverstone 2018 before the race was cancelled the following day. 

In 2020 he was forced to ride a one-year-old bike due to problems with the team’s funding, this didn’t hinder Remy as much as expected and he was stronger than he’s ever been nearly doubling his points tally from the previous season with five less races to finish in P6 overall, not only that but he’d become a regular podium contender racking up four to his name and two pole positions.

The highlight of this year was an incredibly strong and impressive victory in Portimao, he battled hard against Sam Lowes and Luca Marini and came home with his first-ever win, not only that but he had a contract with the best team on the grid in his back pocket, Red Bull KTM Ajo.

Finally after many years on tricky and uncompetitive bikes Remy finally had a strong bike between his legs and a team behind him that could push him to battle for a world championship, he was easily one of the favourites for the championship heading into the 2021 season despite never fighting for a title previously on the world stage. He looked to be the #1 man in the team with rookie Raul Fernandez on the other side of the garage in place to learn and adapt to Moto2 in his rookie year, as we all know, that didn’t exactly go as planned.

Moto2 World Champion. 

Instead Fernandez decided he wanted a slice of the championship pie and would lock horns with his teammate for the championship all season long with the pair running away from the rest of the field thanks to unmatched consistency, they were that strong that second-placed Fernandez led third-placed Bezzecchi by 93 points in the final standings. The Red Bull KTM Ajo riders were untouchable with Raul Fernandez picking up the most wins of eight, beating Remy’s five.

Despite Raul having more wins it was Remy’s supreme consistency that won him the title, in the first nine races Remy finished off the podium only once and finished the year with a worst result of P10 in the final race and only one DNF to his name, Raul however scored many more DNF’s which eventually cost him the title with Remy’s experience favouring the fearlessness of Raul Fernandez.

Hard on the brakes of the RC16, Remy suits the MotoGP way of life well.

At the end of the year it would go down to the final round with Remy Gardner being crowned the 2021 Moto2 World Champion, the pair split by a mere four points. Remy had to put in the hard yards and really work hard to take home the championship glory and at last it paid off.

He was rewarded with a Tech3 KTM MotoGP ride and has looked strong throughout testing despite an early injury, his riding style has been noted by many to suit a 1000cc MotoGP bike, now is the time to put that to the test.

Featured images – KTM Media – Polarity Photo (Main + images on RC16)

CEV Repsol (Race win)

Tech3 MotoGP (Moto2 Parc Ferme)

Dorna (Calvo)