The first part of our series of Moto2 preview articles.
Technomag Interwetten Kalex
Rider: Robin Mulhauser
Race Number: 70
Nationality: Swiss
Date of Birth: 7/11/91
2015 Championship Position: 28th
Moto2 Debut: Aragon 2013
Moto2 Races: 35
Moto2 Highest Finish: 15th Indianapolis 2015
Best Moto2 Season: 2015, 28th
Overall Debut: Aragon 2013
Lower Class Races: 0
Lower Class Wins: 0
The Swiss rider will be starting his third full season on Moto2 but has only scored one World Championship point to date which came in Indianapolis last season. His debut came with a replacement rider for Randy Krummenacher with Technomag carXpert Suter at Aragon in 2013. That led to a full-time ride for the team in 2014 alongside compatriot Dominique Aegerter and the pair have been teammates ever since. Aegerter is clearly the better rider and I would not place any money on Mulhauser adding to his points tally in 2016.
Rider: Dominique Aegerter
Race Number: 77
Nationality: Swiss
Date of Birth: 30/9/90
2015 Championship Position: 17th
Moto2 Debut: Qatar 2010
Moto2 Races: 100
Moto2 Wins: 1 – Germany 2014
Best Moto2 Season: 2013 & 2014 5th
Overall Debut: Portugal 2006
Lower Class Races: 52 (125cc)
Lower Class Highest Finish: 6th France 2009
Last season was Aegerter’s worst since graduating to Moto2 in 2010. It was a disappointment after finishing fifth in the previous two seasons’ final standings and he will want to rediscover the form that secured his only win in Germany in 2014.
He debuted in 125cc for Multimedia Racing in 2006 as a stand-in for Vincent Braillard in the last two races of the year. Aegerter stayed with the team for 2007 and scored points in three races before joining Ajo Motorsport to ride a Derbi in 2008. He scored points in eight races that year including three eighth places finishes and stayed with the team in 2009. That was his last in the 125cc as he raced alongside Sandro Cortese and finished every race, only three of them outside the points and the highlight being sixth place at Le Mans.
Aegerter joined Technomag for the start of the Moto2 series in 2010 and raced alongside the late Shoya Tomizawa before the Japanese rider was killed at Misano during the season. He finished in the top ten on five occasions and finished a respectful 15th in his first season. For the next four years, Aegerter built a reputation as a rider to be reckoned with as he finished eighth in 2011 & 2012 and fifth in 2013 & 2014. He stayed with the Technomag team that he still rides for riding a Suter and the consistency helped even though his teammates would change. In 2011 he was alongside four-time World Supersport Champion Kenan Sofuoglu and the highlight was his first Moto2 podium with third place in the Valencia finale. In 2012 he was alongside Roberto Rolfo who had won the Malaysian round in his previous Moto2 season in 2010 but the Italian struggled and only scored one point in eleven races before leaving to replace Mattia Pasini at Speed Master ART Aprilia in MotoGP. Tomoyoshi Koyama replaced him but fared no better while Aegerter finished every race, all but one in the points and was fourth in Australia and fifth in Valencia to round off a good season.
2013 was at the time his best season as he finished fifth in the standings as he rode alongside fellow Swiss rider Randy Krummenacher. He secured his second podium with third at Assen and once again finished every race but this time every single one in the points. Although he also finished fifth in the 2014 standings I count that as his best season to date because he secured his first (and to date only) Moto2 win at Sachsenring in Germany. Earlier in the season, he’d finished third at Austin and second in Jerez for his highest finish to date but the German round was his crowning glory. He qualified on pole and after a great race long battle with Mika Kallio, he took the lead on the final lap and held on to win by 0.091 seconds. He was on the podium again at the next race at Indianapolis and it looked like the start of great things for him but he’s only been on the podium once more since then. He finished 2013 on 172 points beating his previous best from 2012 of 158.
In 2015 he was alongside current teammate Mulhauser and Thomas Luthi in a three-rider team. While Luthi enjoyed a good start to the season with a podium at the opening round in Qatar and a win in France there was only one good race for Aegerter with third at Mugello in round six. He had chances for glory but suffered bad luck each time. Although he was fourth at Indianapolis he could have won and was leading the race at Misano before he was hit by Alex Rins and finished a lowly 24th. The rest of his finishes were between ninth and thirteenth and he was looking to improve on the when they got to round fourteen at Aragon. Unfortunately he was taken out from behind on the opening lap by Xavier Simeon and that ended his season. He suffered injuries to his hand and ribs and has worked hard to be fit for the 2016 season.
He now starts his seventh season in Moto2 (all with the same team) and has shown he has the ability to win. He needs some more luck on his side as it has worked against him of late but I’d like to think that German race will not be his only win. His consistency is fantastic though. In six seasons in Moto2 to date, he has only failed to finish in four races and in 2012 and 2013 he finished every one. He had 46 consecutive finishes from Silverstone 2011 to Valencia 2013 and 43 of those were in the points. If he can rediscover the pace from his 2014 season and the consistency of the previous seasons then he can challenge for a higher finish than his record of fifth.
Derendinger Interwetten Kalex
Rider: Thomas Luthi
Race Number: 12
Nationality: Swiss
Date of Birth: 6/9/86
2015 Championship Position: 5th
Moto2 Debut: Qatar 2010
Moto2 Races: 102
Moto2 Wins: 5
Best Moto2 Season: 4th 2010, 2012 & 2014
Overall Debut: Germany 2002
Lower Class Races: 114 (67x 125cc, 47x 250cc)
Lower Class Wins: 5 (all 125cc)
Lower Class World Titles: 2005 125cc World Champion
Thomas Luthi has consistently been one of the top riders in Moto2 since its inception in 2010. Prior to that, he spent five seasons in 125cc (winning the title in 2005) and three seasons in 250cc. At 29 years old his chances of a MotoGP look to have gone as younger riders each year make that final step to the premier class but he is still capable of a Moto2 title if he can find consistency. When everything works great Luthi is one of the hardest riders to beat but too often he suffers from average performances.
He started out in 2002 replacing Jakub Smrz at Elit Grand Prix Honda at the German 125cc Grand Prix where he qualified 33rd out of 36 riders and finished 26th. Two races later though at the Portuguese round in Estoril he became the youngest Swiss rider in history to score world championship points when he finished ninth. It was the same day that Chaz Davies became the youngest Briton to score points and Marco Simoncelli the same for Italy. It was a wet race won by Arnaud Vincent with only fourteen finishers.
He stayed with the Elit team throughout his 125cc tenure which lasted a further four seasons. He took his first podium at Barcelona in 2003 as he finished second behind eventual champion Dani Pedrosa. Luthi was also fourth in Malaysia that year but apart from that did nothing to show any sign of greatness before the 2005 season. In fact, in 2004 he only scored fourteen points and finished 25th in the championship. Luthi won the 2005 125cc World Championship with four wins and beat Mika Kallio by five points after finishing ninth at the final round in Valencia. Luthi came into the race with a 23 point lead having been two points behind Kallio with three races to go. He knew that all he needed to do was finish at least fourteenth if Kallio won and did what was needed to take the title. In 2006 he only won one race, at Le Mans, and finished eighth in the standings while Kallio was again second, this time to Alvaro Bautista.
In 2007 Luthi stepped up to the 250cc class with the same team now rebranded Emmi Caffe Latte and now using Aprilia rather than Honda machinery. He rode for the team for all his three years in the 250cc championship but never won a race and only finished on the podium on two occasions – both in 2008 at Mugello and Assen.
When the series became Moto2 in 2010 Luthi signed for Interwetten Moriwaki and had five podium finishes that year taking him to fourth in the inaugural Moto2 championship behind Toni Elias, Julian Simon and Andrea Iannone. The team switched to Suter machinery for the next four years and Luthi stayed with them for this period and again in 2015 when they moved to Kalex with most of the field. Luthi has never finished below sixth in the standings in the six years that that the championship has been running and the season he did finish there, 2013, he missed the first two rounds. He took his first Moto2 win at Malaysia in the penultimate round of the 2011 season and secured three other podiums on the way to fifth in the standings while Stefan Bradl took the title. 2012 started promisingly with a win and four podiums from the first five races but his challenge petered out and he eventually finished fourth behind current MotoGP stars Marc Marquez, Pol Espargaro and Andrea Iannone. He was on the podium six more times on his way to that sixth spot in 2013 but never found the top step unlike 2014 which was his best season to date with two wins. He opened with a third place in Qatar but much of the season was spent on the edge of the top five or six in races. The final four rounds brought two wins at Motegi and Valencia and a second place at Philip Island. Those results lifted him past Aegerter and Johann Zarco into fourth spot.
Last season was the same old story for Luthi. He was brilliant when winning at Le Mans and getting on the podium at Qatar and the last two races in Malaysia and Valencia but the rest of the season was usually spent circulating somewhere between sixth and tenth spot. He’s been on the podium three times in this class at Losail in Qatar so don’t be surprised if he’s there again in a couple of weeks’ time. If he is though don’t let that fool you into tipping him for a title shot. I expect more of the same with the odd podium and maybe a win but at the same time I think there are better riders out there with more consistency that will fight it out for the overall championship.
QMMF Racing Team Speed
Rider: Xavier Simeon
Race Number: 19
Nationality: Belgian
Date of Birth: 31/8/89
2015 Championship Position: 7th
Moto2 Debut: France 2010
Moto2 Races: 94
Moto2 Wins: 1 – Germany 2015
Best Moto2 Season: 7th 2015
Overall Debut: France 2010
Lower Class Races: 0
Lower Class Wins: 0
Simeon didn’t race in the 125cc or 250cc World Championship prior to Moto2 yet he did take part in the inaugural season. He won the 2009 FIM Superstock 1000 Championship with five wins and five runner-up spots to dominate the series. That brought him to the public eye and the then 20-year-old earned some replacement rides for Holiday Gym G22 Moriwaki instead of Fonsi Nieto or Yannick Guerra in 2010 in ten races. He was eighth in his third outing at Silverstone and also took fifteenth in two other rounds.
Those performances earned him two years with Tech 3 where he scored 23 points in each season and a highest finish of eighth again at Valencia in 2011 and Germany 2012. He was alongside Bradley Smith in 2011 & 2012 and Mike Di Meglio in 2011 but finished as the lower rider in both seasons.
When he changed to Kalex machinery in 2013 he found more success and after scoring points in the first three races he secured his first Moto2 podium with third place at Le Mans. For the rest of the season, he either retired (five times) or finished in the top twelve and secured twelfth in the championship. The next season he was on his fourth different machinery in five seasons as he raced a Suter for Gresini alongside Lorenzo Baldassarri and although he was second in Argentina in the third round it was his only podium on his way to fourteenth in the championship.
2015 was Simeon’s best season to date and (staying with Gresini but now on a Kalex) he signalled his intent with second in the opening round in Qatar behind Jonas Folger before securing the pole position for the second round in Austin. Unfortunately he crashed out of the Austin race but continued to impress across the season and secured a magnificent maiden win in Germany from second on the grid, beating pole man and championship leader Zarco by 0.083 seconds. Strangely enough, Simeon was the third consecutive rider to win their first race at the Sachsenring behind Aegerter in 2014 and Jordi Torres in 2013. Simeon passed Zarco to take the lead into turn one with four laps to go and held on until the flag. The season slid downhill from there though as he only scored points in four more or the remaining nine races. It still took him to his best championship position of seventh though and gives him a good platform to build on for 2016 as he joins QMMF alongside Julian Simon replacing Anthony West / Mika Kallio from last season.
Rider: Julian Simon
Race Number: 60
Nationality: Spanish
Date of Birth: 3/4/87
2015 Championship Position: 18th
Moto2 Debut: Qatar 2010
Moto2 Races: 97
Moto2 Highest Finish: 2nd on 7 occasions
Best Moto2 Season: 2nd 2010
Overall Debut: Jerez 2002
Lower Class Races: 111 (78x 125cc, 33x 250cc)
Lower Class Wins: 8 (all in 125cc)
Lower Class World Titles: 2009 125cc World Champion
Simon is another experienced rider who has been in Moto2 since its inception in 2010. Like Luthi, he is a former 125cc champion as he took the title in 2009. He has raced in 250cc as well though as he had two seasons there before dropping back down again. His first season in Moto2 was his best as he challenged for the title and finished second.
The Spanish rider made his debut in 2002 with four wildcard rides in the Iberian rounds on a 125cc Honda and scored his first world championship points in his third race with fourteenth at Estoril in Portugal. His first full season was 2003 on a Malaguti, an Italian moped manufacturer that raced until 2006, where he had only one points finish with twelfth in the penultimate round in Australia. 2004 brought more luck as he scored points in eleven races for Angaia Racing Honda and the highlight being sixth in Malaysia. For the next two seasons Simon raced for Red Bull KTM alongside Kallio, Gabor Talmaschi and Randy Krummenacher. 2005 was his best season and brought his first 125cc win at Silverstone while he also finished in the top ten in twelve other races taking him to seventh in the standings. In 2006 he broke his leg in an accident during the Catalan Grand Prix and missed the next three races leading to a lower overall position of ninth in what was believed to be his last season in 125cc before he stepped up to 250cc.
In 2007 and 2008 he raced for Repsol in the 250cc championship, first on Honda and then in the second year a KTM. He was a regular top ten finisher in both seasons (24 times in 32 races) but never visited the podium. After an unsuccessful couple of years, he stepped back down to 125cc for one last shot at the title. He joined the Bancaja Aspar Aprilia team alongside Bradley Smith and Sergio Gadea to dominate the season and beat teammate Smith by over 60 points. He won seven races and stood on the podium five more times in a season unlike any Simon had raced before.
He was on a roll when he stayed with the Aspar team to race in Moto2 in 2010 alongside 2008 125cc champion Mike Di Meglio. Despite never winning a race all season his consistency took him to second in the championship thanks to eight podium finishes. If 2010 was a success then 2011 was equally a shambles. Although he secured another podium with second at Estoril in round three he crashed following a collision with Sofuoglu on lap 15 of the Catalan race as once more the Barcelona track became the site of a broken leg. The Turkish rider clipped the rear of Simon’s bike flicking him into a heavy highside which fractured his right leg in two places. He missed the next three races before he returned for the next race in Germany where he crashed on the first lap. At the next race at Brno, he crashed in practice and didn’t take part in the race and after three more races he underwent further surgery on the leg and missed three more. He returned for the final race at Valencia and finished tenth to secure 14th in the standings which isn’t bad considering the luck he’d had.
Since then Simon’s career has never quite recovered. The highest he has finished in the standings is 13th in both 2012 and 2013 before slipping to 17th in 2014 and 18th last year. There have been occasional highlights that make us remember the rider Simon was. In 2012 he finished third in Indianapolis and second in Valencia riding a Blusens Avintia Suter. He hasn’t been on the podium since although he was close with fourth in Germany for Italtrans Kalex in 2013. In the past three seasons he hasn’t beaten any of his teammates in the championship – Takaaki Nakagami in 2013, Franco Morbidelli in 2014 and Mika Kallio last year. To be fair Kallio was only with the QMMF Speed Up team for the last five races of the year and Simon was in front of West in the standings when the Australian left the team.
He stays with the team for 2016 but has not shown any sign in the last few years of a return to the podium and will likely remain as a rider on the fringes of the points.
