The troubled season that preceded a MotoGP rookie’s breakout
Valentino Rossi protege Marco Bezzecchi enters MotoGP after two fine years in Moto2. To get to that stage, though, he had to overcome the troubles of a campaign that yielded a lowly 23rd in the points
KTM’s 2022 MotoGP rider roster is an ultra-impressive array of young chargers who all have the added bonus of qualifying as more or less homegrown. Works duo Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira and Tech3 rookies Raul Fernandez and Remy Gardner were, every single one, no strangers to running the Red Bull KTM colours pre-MotoGP, with all four carrying that livery to either a Moto2 title (Gardner) or a Moto2 almost-title (Oliveira, Binder, Fernandez).
But so expansive is KTM’s presence below MotoGP, from its Red Bull Rookies Cup spec series to the lighter grand prix classes, that the MotoGP grid also features plenty of might-have-beens for the marque. Its sometime 125cc rider Marc Marquez is an obvious one, but Jack Miller – who it tried to get back after he flew the coop to go from Moto3 to MotoGP directly – and Jorge Martin are also on the list.
And now, though he never rode in KTM factory colours, 2022 rookie Marco Bezzecchi also fits the bill – albeit neither side is probably too broken up about where their separate ways have taken them.
Bezzecchi was KTM’s Moto3 benchmark in 2018 when he took on Martin for the crown, but it was champion Martin who was lured over into its intermediate-class factory outfit for the following year.
KTM’s preference, it seemed, was for Bezzecchi to stick around in the lightweight class for another year – something that would’ve been facilitated by the fact he had signed a two-year deal covering 2019 with Prustel GP. But Bezzecchi had his sights on a graduation before that – and ultimately he got it, landing a ride at Tech3 as part of what he would later suggest to Italian outlet GPOne.com was a revised two-year deal with KTM.
The 2019 season was to be Tech3’s first year as part of KTM’s family, the outfit switching from Yamahas to KTMs in the premier class and from its bespoke Mistral bikes to, again, KTMs in the intermediate class. It would also be the final year in Moto2 for both Tech3 and the KTM RC250GPs, not that anyone knew that at the time.
Adorned in the Toro Rosso-esque, Red Bull Cola-promoting Tech3 colours, Bezzecchi faced decently sized expectations, described by KTM motorsport boss Pit Beirer as a “raw diamond” along with Martin and lauded by Tech3 boss Herve Poncharal.
Talented rider, big-shot manufacturer, ultra-reputable team. And yet, it started to sour pretty quickly. “I can’t tell you I’m not disappointed, because then I would be lying and I don’t like to lie,” Poncharal said after a pre-season test at Jerez in which Bezzecchi and team-mate Philipp Ottl – now a World Supersport rider – placed 29th and 28th respectively.
“Clearly we are not in great positions, quite far down, and this is not something we were hoping for.”
It got worse before it got better. Bezzecchi didn’t score a single point in his first seven Moto2 races – although it was clear it wasn’t entirely down to him, with the whole KTM fleet failing to bag a single podium in that stint, and fellow rookie Martin managing just three points.
Poncharal was particularly irritated after Bezzecchi (and Ottl) drew a blank in an attrition-hit Le Mans race. “I can’t see any progress and although our two riders are rookies, we have a lot of rookies ahead,” he said. “I believe the profile of the team and the riders and the whole potential of the package is much higher than what we are doing.”
He would later say: “We know the level of Marco, but for many reasons that we don’t control and we don’t always understand, at the moment he’s got no feeling, no speed, no confidence and as he’s said a few times, every time he is pushing, he is crashing.”
Remarkably, those were not quotes given in a media briefing, but in a team-issued press release – although that is very much Poncharal’s style.
Again, the rut was not Bezzecchi’s alone. It took KTM a lot of work to get its machines back firing, with its chassis initially not gelling with the Triumph engines that debuted that year. But as the year wore on the improvements were stark, at least at the works team where Binder went on a great run to come within just three points of the title.
Bezzecchi improved too, his qualifying average progressing from a bleak 23.1 over the first nine races to a much better 15.3 over the final 10. Yet no big points hauls would be forthcoming, as Bezzecchi’s best qualifying efforts went begging – he crashed at Misano and was, along with fellow Valentino Rossi protege Luca Marini, taken out by Iker Lecuona at Phillip Island. At Motegi, his race unravelled because he vomited in his helmet, which was actually for the second time in two consecutive weekends.
His improved pace was acknowledged by his team boss, but the season was a wash, and his KTM relationship had run its course. Even if KTM didn’t pull out its bikes at the end of 2021, and Tech3 didn’t end its intermediate-class tenure, Bezzecchi was not a standout in KTM’s Moto2 roster. Both Binder and Martin made much greater strides in 2019, and Lecuona impressed much more, enough to first earn a promotion to the works Ajo team and then parlay that into a move to Tech3’s MotoGP operation.
Could Bezzecchi have been in Lecuona’s position if he’d had a better rookie season? Perhaps – but then again, Bezzecchi did turn down a move to Aprilia’s MotoGP stable the following year, so it’s not clear whether he would’ve been amenable to graduating after just a single intermediate-class season.
A return to the home comforts of the VR46 operation served him well, and there’s probably no other team Bezzecchi would prefer to make his MotoGP debut with.
But that doesn’t mean his KTM dalliance was a wash, or that he couldn’t forge that tie again at some point in the future. For not only did he fly its flag high in Moto3, but his sole bad Moto2 season helped prepare a rider who then emerged as a genuine gem of the intermediate class.
