Remy Gardner spent his entire two-wheel racing life trying just to make it to MotoGP. When he did, he was kicked to the kerb in eight months.
There were some dark, dark days as Gardner tried to rationalise how what he wanted had come and gone in a snap of the fingers. But now, nearly two years after his heart was broken, he’s back for a good time, not a long time. Which will be just fine with him.
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The 26-year-old Australian is back on the premier-class grid with Yamaha for this weekend’s German Grand Prix because of a confluence of circumstances that make little sense, but are in keeping with why he departed in the first place.
At last weekend’s Dutch TT at Assen, Yamaha rider Alex Rins high-sided heavily at the first corner of Sunday’s race, the Spaniard suffering two fractures to his right hand and one to his left leg when he returned to earth.
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With a race in Germany seven days later and a three-week summer break immediately following, the decision was made to park Rins – who was scheduled to have a pin removed from the right leg he broke at last year’s Italian Grand Prix during the July hiatus – to allow him to recuperate.
Yamaha’s test rider Cal Crutchlow would have typically stepped in if Rins or teammate Fabio Quartararo were unable to race, but the Briton was unavailable because of his own recovery from a right hand injury, one that scuppered a planned wildcard appearance at the Italian GP in early June.
Yamaha could have easily just entered Quartararo for the German GP – a manufacturer isn’t required to employ a replacement rider for a race that happens within 10 days of a regular rider being ruled out – but peeked at the World Superbikes calendar. There was a gap in the schedule between Misano in mid-June and Donington Park in July. Gardner was free. But was he interested?
It didn’t take the Australian long to say yes, despite how miserably his time in the top flight ended in 2022. Coming into MotoGP with the Tech3 KTM team after winning the previous season’s Moto2 title for the Austrian manufacturer, Gardner and fellow rookie teammate Raul Fernandez struggled.
Fernandez – who reluctantly came in with KTM and immediately inked a deal with Aprilia for the following season – got to stay, and has never left. Gardner, despite scoring one fewer point than the Spaniard in 2022 and out-qualifying him 14 times in 19 races after beating him to the 2021 Moto2 crown – was out.
Much was made at the time of Gardner’s sacking by KTM that his manager Paco Sanchez had rubbed KTM motorsport director Pit Beirer up the wrong way, and some of Gardner’s typically forthright media debriefs – “if a f**king tornado wants to rip up the track and we can go home early, that’d be good” was his comment after a tough qualifying session in France that season – went down like a lead balloon, as did public comments about his machinery.
Gardner claimed KTM had questioned his professionalism, a criticism KTM denied making. Gardner said he felt he’d been blindsided when KTM told him he’d be let go in Austria in August; KTM countered by saying he should have known that his future was shaky when a June option to extend his contract came and went. Gardner’s father Wayne, the 1987 500cc world champion, pinned the blame on Sanchez for his son’s sacking; Remy took to social media to shoot down that assertion with the carefully-constructed “I am very sorry for the words of Wayne Gardner”, the private strain on the relationship between father and son making a rare appearance out in the open.
Gardner’s press debrief at the Red Bull Ring after being told he was surplus to requirements by KTM nearly two years ago remains as raw now as it was then, an unfiltered outpouring from a rider who, as he put it, felt “a little bit deceived by the world of motorcycles”.
“My intention was to stay here and give my best, and honestly they’ve broken my heart,” he said.
“I think it hasn’t been a disaster. It was positive vibes from them. They told me extremely late, really screwed me over for a seat for next year.
“It’s definitely hard to take after fighting so many years … with the injuries and fighting, and with maybe not the best machinery, I finally managed to actually kick a goal and win a championship [in Moto2]. To just have only one year in MotoGP …. yeah, it breaks my heart.”
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Gardner has found a happy landing spot in World Superbikes with Yamaha since he parked his KTM after the final race of the 2022 season at Valencia and barely looked back. His second Superbikes season in 2024 has already surpassed his first, and he has a podium finish (in the Netherlands) this season to sit seventh in the standings.
After his cameo at the Sachsenring, life will resume where it left off, Donington coming next weekend and Most in the Czech Republic the week after as his sophomore Superbikes season picks up the pace.
But that’s for the future. For the next three days, Gardner is a MotoGP rider again – and it’s an experience he’s determined to enjoy no matter the result. The bitterness behind his departure two years ago meant he didn’t count on a world where he’d come back, making this surprise call-up one to savour, not a trigger to lament what might have been.
“I’m just extremely happy for this opportunity,” he commented when Yamaha confirmed the rumours surrounding a possible return were true on Wednesday.
“I just want to say thank you so much to Yamaha for trusting me. It’s a new bike … I’m looking forward to enjoying this weekend.
“I’m really excited about this challenge.”
