MotoGP Editorial: A Graveyard Of Talent
Michael Scott | September 4, 2014
Will Australia’s latest boy wonder Jack Miller be pole-vaulting straight from Moto3 to MotoGP? Can a rider really go from tiddlers to titans, missing out the middle ground of Moto2?
It’s all a bit up in the air at the moment, with the rising new Australian star staying vague as rumors abound, including quite a strong one that the Queenslander will be joining Cal Crutchlow in the LCR Honda team. Crutchlow will have a satellite factory RC213V, Miller a production RCV1000R. And team owner Lucio Cecchinello a feisty pairing to deal with.
The architect of the move is none other than the Honda Racing Corporation. Big chief Shuhei Nakamoto knows a good rider when he sees one; knows that Marc Marquez can’t go on forever, knows that he’d better get in early or Yamaha will snatch him up.
Which all makes sense.
What is verging on the bizarre is that he has to look at the bottom rung of the Grand Prix ladder to feed the top step, and that there is nowhere sensible in between where a favored rider can spend a couple of years learning more about racing.
But Nakamoto is not the only one. Yamaha is known to be keenly interested in another Moto3 rider, Alex Rins; while the latest reports from Spain have Aprilia waiting in case Miller’s HRC deal falls though… also to put him straight into their team for the Italian company’s return to MotoGP next year.
To read the rest of In The Paddock in this week’s Cycle News, click here