VOLUME ISSUE MAY , P89
"I don't really have too many
ties here," he says. "I knew in
2017 I wanted to race in the
World Championship, so I
started saving as much mon
-
ey as I could that year. I knew
that if I was going to have an
opportunity to go to the World
Championship, it wasn't going
to pay anything. I knew it was
going to be kind of a shit deal,
but a good opportunity. That's
how it was going to be set up.
So, I just started try
-
ing to set up my life
around that possible
opportunity. Then I
kind of forced it.
"In 2019, I was
pretty vocal about
wanting to go to World Su
-
perbike. It was the easiest
connection to make because
[Gerloff was on the factory Ya
-
maha team in MotoAmerica]
it was Yamaha-to-Yamaha.
I ended up going to Magny-
Cours in France to plead my
case. I didn't really think any
-
thing was going to come of
it, but then I came back home
with a contract signed!
"I definitely forced the
issue but I'm glad I
did. I'm glad I took
the chance and I'm
glad I set my life up
to be able to do it,
so I wasn't locked
down with a bunch of
responsibilities here.
I just knew what I wanted to
do."
His Andorran base has him
deep in the heart of where the
fastest riders in the world call
home during the season. Jack
Miller, Jorge Martin, Aleix
and Pol Espargaro, Alex Rins,
Brad and Darryn Binder are
all neighbors, making training
competitive but also a great
place to make the all-impor
-
tant racing connections.
"Andorra has a great sports
residency program for the
riders," Gerloff says. "It's a
beautiful place to live, for
sure. They didn't really need
to convince me. It's nice, too,
(Left) Gerloff says
the BMW is miles
apart from the
Yamaha. (Below)
The latter years with
the Yamaha GRT
team were trying to
say the least.
