Former Tech3 KTM racer Remy Gardner will make an unexpected MotoGP return at this weekend’s German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring, as the Australian comes back to the premier class from the World Superbike championship to replace the injured Alex Rins on the works Yamaha machine.
Rins crashed during Sunday’s Dutch TT at Assen, sustaining injuries to his right wrist and ankle that required surgery on Tuesday in Madrid to repair.
And, with MotoGP’s month-long summer break coming up directly after the German round, his Yamaha team has instead elected to promote Gardner back into MotoGP in order to give Rins more time to fully heal up.
“First of all,” said team boss Maio Meregalli, “let me start by saying that the team is relieved that Alex's surgery went well and that the injuries he sustained in the highside are not more serious. We all wish him a speedy recovery, and we hope to welcome him back soon.
“Secondly, we are thankful to Remy Gardner and the GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK team that he can join us at the Sachsenring on such short notice.
“We are sure that this will be an interesting experience for him, but the team will do everything we can to make him feel welcome and supported throughout this weekend's steep learning curve.”
Gardner is currently among Yamaha’s top performers in the WSBK paddock, finding new form this year on the satellite GRT machine and running in contention for a maiden win at Assen in April. He sits seventh in the championship, only two places behind the factory-backed leading Yamaha of Andrea Locatelli.
The 2021 Moto2 world champion and the son of 1987 500cc champion Wayne, he rode only a single disappointing season in MotoGP the year after his Moto2 crown with satellite KTM team Tech3.
He scored points in only a handful races before being only the latest in a long string of racers to be somewhat unceremoniously dumped by the Austrian brand to make room for his successor as Moto2 champion, Augusto Fernandez.
The Race says
Even though he hardly performed at a level that made keeping him on a must, the end of Remy Gardner's original dalliance with MotoGP had left a sour taste.
Partnered with a seemingly wantaway Raul Fernandez and looking about level with the much-heralded Spanish talent - if not slightly ahead of him - in the first half of his rookie 2022 season, Gardner seemed on course for an extension, but was then deemed surplus to requirements amid behind-the-scenes tensions (which at one point rose to the surface) between KTM and his management team.
KTM can hardly be excoriated for bringing in Augusto Fernandez, whose rookie season the following year was stronger, and had Gardner stayed anyway you get the feeling he'd just end up the one sacrificed on the altar of Pedro Acosta a year later.
A KTM line-up revolution, knowing what we know now, was always coming.
But the KTM's decision to axe him clearly took a toll on Gardner, who spent the remainder of that MotoGP campaign very jaded and bitter, entertainingly blunt but clearly having no fun and feeling his career had been ripped away from him.
That was no way to bow out of the MotoGP paddock for a world champion rider who's had one of the more thorny paths to the premier class - and a chance to ride a works Yamaha in lieu of Rins at least allows him to right that particular wrong, even if it doesn't lead to anything more.
It's also a well-earned chance, given Gardner has been progressing well - establishing himself as Yamaha's second-fastest rider in World Superbike behind Locatelli (who he's challenged on occasion) and becoming a frequent podium threat.
