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Australia, Great Britain and the USA

Dorna’s CEO, Carmelo Ezpeleta, inevitably points to the 125-250 route as the best path to MotoGP. His reluctance to even mention the dreaded word ‘Superbike’ is a result of the steady resurgence of the World Superbike Championship, still much less popular than MotoGP, but with bigger grids and closer racing now. But, in fact, if there is a national championship that produces future MotoGP talent, it is not the AMA or BSB series, but instead the CEV…the Campeonato español de velocidad...the Spanish National Championship.

Of the current MotoGP stars, only about a half dozen, including the four riders who have won races so far this season, are all products of the CEV. Valentino Rossi spent a season and a bit in the CEV battling the likes of five-time World Champion Jorge Martinez before making the jump to World 125. And, as is better known, Dani Pedrosa, Casey Stoner, Toni Elias, and Jorge Lorenzo all came out of the Spanish 125 nationals. Stoner, who also raced 125 in Great Britain, actually lived briefly with his family in the spacious backyard of the Puig estate while cutting his racing teeth in Spain.

In fact, the 125-250 route has taken all of the current non-English speaking riders to MotoGP, but the motorcycling cultures of the United States, Great Britain, and Australia follow big four-stroke classes and promote this kind of racing. Current efforts to promote 125 racing for young riders by Dorna and bolstered by Red Bull may offset this trend, but a glance at the top ten national riders in the US, GB, and Australia will reveal that most talent still flows up to Superbike.

Britain’s Chaz Davies was seen for a time as the next British superstar, but he is now racing AMA Supersport. Bradley Smith has now assumed the role of emerging British star, with Scott Redding coming along through 125 as well, but if Britain is to have a MotoGP winner in the next couple of years (and no British rider has won a premier class Grand Prix since Barry Sheene at Anderstorp in August of 1981), it will have to be 2007 World Superbike Champion James Toseland.

Dorna never mentions this fact, but the other direct source of talent for MotoGP is Superbike at both the national and world level. The five English-speaking riders in MotoGP all come from a big four-stroke background. Nicky Hayden, Colin Edwards, John Hopkins, Chris Vermeulen, and James Toseland, coming from big four strokes, have done well but only two have won MotoGP races and the combined total of wins by these ex-Superbike riders is a mere four races (Hayden 3, Vermeulen 1). At present only a group of three or four MotoGP riders are actually fighting at the front, and, so far at least, Suzuki and Kawasaki riders have been absent from that group, as have been American riders.