You are here

MotoGP, Stefan Bradl; “I was too polite, I should have had a ‘fuck you’ attitude”

PART 4: “My parents taught me good manners. In this hard job, I often thought too much about what everyone thought of me. As a rider and test rider, I benefited greatly from working with Marc. I can only describe his approach as exemplary in almost every area.”

MotoGP: Stefan Bradl; “I was too polite, I should have had a ‘fuck you’ attitude”

Stefan Bradl has completed 131 MotoGP appearances in his GP career, 218 GP races in total, as well as the Superbike World Championship season in the Red Bull Honda factory team; his teammate Nicky Hayden had a fatal accident on his racing bike in Misano in May.

The 35-year-old German also won the International German 125 cc Championship (IDM) in 2005 - as a talent in Dieter Stappert's Red Bull KTM Junior Team. He made his debut for this team in 2005 with a wild card at the Barcelona GP. A full World Championship season followed in 2006 with this team under Dieter Stappert; but an eleventh place in Brno was the only result worth counting.

After the separation from KTM, the Bavarian was accepted into the MotoGP Academy in the winter of 2006/2007, which was run in Barcelona by Red Bull and Dorna to develop talents such as Danny Webb, Taka Nakagami, Ivan Silva, Danny Kent, Jonas Folger and so on for the World Championship. The young riders were under the care of Alberto Puig, who most recently served as the boss of MotoGP test rider Bradl at HRC since 2018.

Bradl was supposed to take part in the International Spanish 125cc Championship (CEV) for the Spanish Repsol Honda team. As an only child at the age of 17, he was required to stay in Spain for seven weeks without a break. His parents were not allowed access to the academy and the pits during test rides, even though his father Helmut had narrowly lost the 250cc World Championship to Luca Cadalora in 1991 and played a valuable role in the development of the talented German. In February 2007, Stefan therefore took off during a 125 cc Honda test in Valencia at the strict academy and fled on the passender seat of one of his dad Helmut's BMW motorcycle towards Barcelona, ​​where a Mercedes Sprinter was parked. The three-hour journey in thin racing leathers took place at an outside temperature of around 4 degrees.

At the time, there were fears that Stefan Bradl's career would end before it had really got going.

But Bradl found another team for the CEV and won the International Spanish Championship on a private Aprilia 125 from the Blusens team thanks to sponsorship money from Grizzly Gas and his Austrian patron Alfred Gangelberger.

After a strong ninth place with a wild card at the Catalunya GP, the talented young rider got a contract with the German Kiefer team for the 2008 125cc World Championship. He won the Grand Prix in Brno and Motegi, finished fourth in the World Championship and moved up to the Moto2 World Championship for 2010 with Kiefer on a Suter MMX2. He won in Estoril and clinched the 2011 Moto2 World Championship title on a Kalex against Marc Márquez - with five season victories.

In the MotoGP World Championship, Bradl achieved a total of 53 top ten results. He rode for LCR-Honda (2012 to 2014), Forward Yamaha (2015 to July) and Gresini Aprilia Racing (until the end of 2016) as well as with HRC (2018 to 2024). His career at LCR included a great second place at the 2013 Laguna Seca GP behind Marc Márquez.

At the 2024 World Championship final in Barcelona, ​​Stefan Bradl probably competed in his last Grand Prix, as Aleix Espargaró and Taka Nakagami have now been hired as test riders at HRC. In future, they will be responsible for racing with wild cards and as reserve riders.

Stefan, when you look back on your almost 20-year World Championship career, what grade from 1 to 10 would you give yourself? After all, you have outlasted many of your former comrades in arms. I am just thinking of Bradley Smith, Jorge Lorenzo, Rossi, Spies, Barbera, Abraham, de Puniet, Petrucci, Lüthi and Edwards. Andrea Iannone has also been out of the MotoGP class for five years.

SB "When I think of the smaller classes, I can think of many other colleagues, for example Sandro Cortese, then Tito Rabat. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give myself a 6 or 7."

You competed with an HRC factory contract from 2012 to 2014 for LCR Honda. Then Jack Miller was supposed to be your teammate in 2015, with an Open Class Honda without a seamless gearbox and without pneumatic valves. You would have continued to get the factory RC213V with 1000 cc. But you turned this LCR down and signed with Forward Yamaha. A mistake?

"Hm. When I look back on it today, I just wasn't mentally mature enough in 2012. I was 22 years old, but mentally I wasn't ready for the premier class of MotoGP"

Mentally you were only 15, if I may exaggerate a bit.

(He smiles.) "That could be true… During the four years at Kiefer, two in the 125cc and two in the Moto2 World Championship, we had a fun and a family atmosphere. From there I joined an international racing team at LCR and entered MotoGP. I was thrown in at the deep end; it was difficult for me. In the first year you still enjoy a bit of puppy protection. But in 2013 and 2014 it was difficult to meet the expectations of the team and HRC. I've heard from various people hat HRC that I need to improve."

Before the 2014 MotoGP season with LCR, the Japanese HRC bosses told you: «From now on, only podium places count.» But that was a tough task against two Factory Yamaha and two factory Honda plus Dovi on Ducati. And in fact, sometimes after a fourth place like in Texas and fifth place in Barcelona, ​​the team barely even looked at you after the race. That's why you walked out of the pits in Catalunya in 2014 with tears in your eyes.

"Yes, that weighed heavily on me, and we heard that Marc Márquez would be moving up to the Repsol Honda team in 2013. He was already my reference point in Moto2, and his promotion put me already under pressure in 2013. I had a year's head start in the MotoGP class on him. In terms of riding and physical skills, I could have fulfilled the expectations of HRC and LCR, I had the skills to do so. But I was too shy and worried too much".

Cal Crutchlow became your successor at LCR in 2015 alongside Jack Miller. He also felt the pressure, but he was six years older, more hardened and tough anyway.

"Yes, I had too good an upbringing. That's why I always wanted to please everyone. But with this attitude in this sport you come up short because you forget about yourself and think about other things instead of asserting a healthy "fuck you" attitude."

Sometimes people accused you of losing places in the last quarter of the race because you weren't in top physical shape.

"I don't want to say that. The years 2013 and 2014 weren't so bad in terms of fitness. But I wasn't as strong mentally and not as composed as you need to be in MotoGP. I didn't have the necessary calm when riding. I often thought when I was in a promising position: If I fall off now, the team will be disappointed. That was more mentally draining and stressful than physically".

Yes, for example, you crashed in Qatar in 2014 at half time while in the lead. At the next race in Texas, you were running in third place, but you really wanted to get your first points of the year, which is why Dovizioso beat you into fourth place. Your team was quite disappointed.

"Exactly, right. The team was no longer satisfied with such results in the third year. That's why at some point in 2014 I realised: Now it's going to be difficult to meet the demands of LCR and HRC."

At the start of your MotoGP career, off-road riding like dirt track, enduro and motocross became more and more popular. Valentino Rossi also had to adapt. But in Germany it is the depths of winter for around four months and outdoor motorcycle training is hardly an option. So you have a location disadvantage compared to the Italians and Spaniards.

"That's true. And in retrospect, you can also say that it's not bad if you can stay in the MotoGP scene for so long given these circumstances. I signed a new two-year test rider contract with HRC for 2025 and 2026. In summary, I can say: Not everything I've achieved has been bad. Because I've competed in 131 MotoGP races, more than any other German. The next exciting question is whether a fellow countryman will ever take part in a MotoGP race in the future. But the problem of young talent is another topic that we'd better talk about in detail another time, otherwise we'll be sitting at this interview at the turn of the year."

You have surpassed many German talents, not only because of your seven GP victories, but also because of the unforgettable Laguna Seca GP in 2013. You dominated every training session there, as well as the qualifying and the warm-up. And you only let Marc Márquez take first place in the race after 21 of 30 laps. In addition, after Marc's injury in 2020 and in the two years after that, you often rode more races for Repsol Honda than the superstar.

"Yes, in some way that was actually a good time for me because I learned a lot from the way Marc's team works. I also benefited greatly as a racer and test rider from working with Marc himself. I can only describe his approach as exemplary in almost all areas. During this time, however, it was also confirmed that I hadn't done too much wrong in my behavior during the three LCR years from 2012 to 2014 and then the one and a half years in the Aprilia factory team until the end of 2016. I was just too well-behaved in some areas and not confident enough mentally. That had a lot to do with my upbringing. My parents taught me good manners. That's why, in this tough business, I often thought too much about what this person or everyone thought of me now."

Previous episodes:

https://www.gpone.com/en/2024/12/10/motogp/bradl-albesiano-will-bring-new-ideas-but-honda-will-have-to-implement-them-quickly

https://www.gpone.com/en/2024/12/12/motogp/bradl-like-marquez-said-we-riders-cant-do-more-its-up-to-hrc.html

https://www.gpone.com/en/2024/12/15/motogp/bradl-the-ball-is-now-in-albesianos-court-rather-than-that-of-the-test-riders.html

 

Related articles

 
 
Privacy Policy