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MOTO2: Noyes Notebook: Moto2 Primer
In the first of his Wednesday SPEED.com MotoGP/World Superbike notebooks, Dennis Noyes breaks down the new Moto2 class.
Dennis Noyes  |  Posted April 07, 2010   Losail (QAT)
Jack & Jones by Antonio Banderas' Kenny Noyes (Photo: Antonio Banderas Racing)

PROGRAMMING NOTE: The Moto2 season opener from Qatar will air same day on SPEED on April 11th at 11:00pm EST.

For the first time since the FIM Grand Prix World Championship began there will be no 250 class when the 61st season of the series begins in Qatar this weekend. Replacing the lightweight 250cc twin-cylinder two strokes will be the new Moto2 category, a class that FIM President Vito Ippolito hopes to see introduced in top national championships around the world in the next few years.

Fans in the USA have always followed the premier class, but interest in the support championships has waned since the last American 250 champion, John Kocinski, scored his final 250 win in the 1990 season finale. Some fans that tune into the first GP of the season on SPEED may have only a vague idea about this new class for prototype chassis powered by identical Honda 600cc four cylinder engines. Here are the basic facts.

Who Races Moto2?

The field of 40 riders includes four world champions, all from the 125 class, and 19 GP winners. Four of the riders, Toni Elias, Alex de Angelis, Yuki Takahashi, and Gabor Talmacsi were racing in MotoGP last year. Two of the riders have won world championship races in other four-stroke classes: Fonsi Nieto, who was runner up in 250cc back in 2002, won a single World Superbike race, and Anthony West, who was a MotoGP rider in 2008, won two World Supersport races in 2007.

In general it is a mix of riders dropped from MotoGP who are desperate to get back and 250 riders who didn't move up with Aoyama and the other three this offseason. Then there are the 125 riders who always expected to advance to 250, but who, like the 250 holdovers, must now deal with heavier bikes and the problem of engine braking. And finally there are the Grand Prix rookies, suddenly given what is for many of them a chance they never expected to have with potentially equal machinery on the same track with riders that they have previously only seen on TV.

Of the 40 riders, 30 have at least one full year of GP experience and 22 have made at least one GP podium appearance. Rookies (riders who have never started a GP) make up 25% (10 of 40) in the field, and among them are three riders from the Americas: Venezuelan ex-AMA regular Robertini Pietri, Columbian Jonny Hernandez and, from the United States, Kenny Noyes.


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