A new piece of the puzzle that makes up the 2023 MotoGP riders’ grid was put into place this past Saturday, during the San Marino Grand Prix, when KTM closed an agreement with the Spanish rider Augusto Fernández, current leader of the Moto2 World Championship, to race next season in the premier class with the GasGas-Tech3 team , which will continue to compete with RC16 prototypes supplied by the Austrian manufacturer. His place in the KTM-Ajo Moto2 team will be taken by fellow Spaniard Albert Arenas.
Fernández, who is in his sixth season in the intermediate class, signed a one-year deal with the option, by the manufacturer, to extend it for another year , until the end of 2024. By then, the arrival of his current partner in Ajo is expected, Pedro Acosta, to MotoGP, although it is not known if he will do it in the Tech3 team or in the official factory formation, which is what the rider wants.
It so happens that, after signing with Aki Ajo at the end of 2021 to fill one of the vacancies left by Remy Gardner and Raúl Fernández, Augusto’s first weeks in the KTM-Ajo Moto2 team were complicated and Ajo himself announced that a start would be sought for 2023. However, after six blank races, the results were arriving and the Mallorcan driver has climbed to the top of the classification and is a clear contender for the title after adding 4 victories, 6 podiums and a total of 8 top5s in the last eight races. That, and the departure of Gardner and Fernández from Tech3, have opened the doors of the renowned GasGas.
Pending official confirmation, Augusto Fernández is, at the moment, the only rookie rider for the queen class in 2023, and there could be no other since Ai Ogura, with whom he is fighting for the Moto2 championship, does not seem to have, for At the moment, I intend to join the LCR-Honda team in the position of Takaaki Nakagami, as Honda would like. Everything indicates that Taka will continue one more year in his current position.
Arenas, to the KTM-Ajo of Moto2
Once Augusto’s move to MotoGP is confirmed, a place in the Ajo Moto2 team will be unlocked , along with Acosta, which will be occupied by the current GasGas-Aspar rider Albert Arenas .
The 25-year-old Spaniard has been in the World Championship for eight years, the last two in Moto2, and always linked with KTM, the bike with which he won the Moto3 title in 2020 within the Aspar structure, with whom he continues in the class. intermediate with a Kalex painted in GasGas colours, the brand owned by Pierer Industrias.
Arenas is not offering the expected results since his jump to Moto2, where after 32 races he still hasn’t been able to step on the podium. This has led Aspar to inform him that he will not have him in 2023 to make room for one of his two current riders in Moto3, managing to get the rider’s agent, who is the same one who leads Pol Espargaró, to place him in the structure of KTM-Garlic for 2023.
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