Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1487488
Marquez, Verstappen Team Up T he 2022 Honda Thanks Day was held at Motegi and saw nearly all of Honda's contracted stars in attendance in both two- and four-wheeled competition. Formula One World Champion Max Verstappen, his Red Bull Racing teammate Sergio Perez, F1 driver Pierre Gasly (Scude- ria AlphaTauri), Marc Marquez, Takaaki Nakagami and MXGP World Champion Tim Gaiser all made appearances, with the highlight being the endurance karting event in which Verstap- pen and Marquez teamed up to take the overall victory. The Honda Thanks Day has become an annual tradition for the Honda Racing Corpora- tion where its many riders and drivers gather together to put on an event for the Japanese fans. In years past, former Honda F1 driver Fernando Alonso has ridden Marc Marquez's Repsol Honda, but in 2022, each rider and driver stuck to their own machine for a series of demon- stration runs. Honda is officially no longer an engine supplier to Red Bull Racing but has licensed their engine technology to the team to be rebranded as Red Bull engines, hence the appearance of F1 drivers Verstappen, Perez, Gasly and Yuki Sonoda (Scude- ria AlphaTauri). CN IN THE WIND P36 KTM Admits To Rushing Riders Into MotoGP K TM's motorsport boss, Pit Beirer, has admitted the marque's rushing of riders up the ranks into MotoGP may not have been the ideal path. In the last two seasons, three junior riders have come and gone through the KTM Tech3 team— Iker Lecuona, Raul Fernandez and Remy Gardner—with only Fernandez able to stay in MotoGP at the now RNF Aprilia team, while both Lecuona and Gardner has decamped to WorldSBK. The latest rider into the KTM/ GasGas pressure cooker is cur- rent Moto2 World Champion Au- gusto Fernandez, who replaces Gardner in the Tech3 team. Speaking with motorsport. com, Beirer said of Augusto Fernandez's promotion, "If you go into the MotoGP class you are under pressure. But we don't want to talk now about what Pe- dro [Acosta] can do the year after and if he's ready to go to Mo- toGP. And personally, I think we pushed too many great Moto2 riders too quickly into MotoGP. "So, also a second great Moto2 season would not hurt some riders. Even Marc Marquez had a second one." The latest rider waiting in the wings for a KTM MotoGP seat is wonderkid Pedro Acosta, who took three race wins in his Moto2 rookie season. "Our motivation is not to re- place Augusto after one year. It's rather motivation to keep Pedro calm and develop him as a future [talent]. He's a future diamond in this paddock, that's clear. But I think we should not rush to put him into MotoGP." CN Is Augusto Fernandez under intense pressure before he's even had one race in MotoGP?