Stefan Bradl, 2011 Moto2 World Champion and the best German rider in history in the "premier class" with 53 top-ten finishes, now also works as a MotoGP expert for the Austrian free-to-air broadcaster ServusTV. He also oversees the promotion of young motorcycle racers in Germany. For three years from 2021 to 2023, the seven times GP winner organized the Bradl Rookies Days, where up to eleven German talents aged 11 to 16 received riding lessons on 250cc Moto3 Production Racers, such as the Honda RS250R, on German racetracks and were able to demonstrate their talent.
As a reminder: Germany has not produced a GP rider since Philipp Öttl in 2012 who has been able to remain in the World Championship permanently. Bradl, Cortese, and Folger, Philipp Öttl, Marcel Schrötter and Lukas Tulovic, among many others, have now disappeared from the Moto2 World Championship. German teams like Kiefer Racing and Freudenberg have not found a new GP rider despite intensive efforts. Candidates like Luca Amato, Florian Alt, Tim Georgi, Toni Finsterbusch, Luca Grünwald, and others have also failed to establish themselves sustainably in the Moto3 World Championship.
The bleak German situation is also extremely disappointing for Dorna and the new World Championship promoter Liberty Media, because German fans often not only visit the Sachsenring GP, but also flock to the Grands Prix at Assen, Brno, the Balaton Circuit, and Spielberg. But without local heroes, interest dwindles, including among TV stations. In Germany, MotoGP events have not been shown on free TV since 2024.
Dorna has faced a similar predicament in Great Britain since Cal Crutchlow was forced to retire as a contracted MotoGP rider. In previous years, British riders regularly competed in MotoGP, including Shane Byrne, Jeremy McWilliams, James Toseland, Neil Hodgson, James Ellison, Eugene Laverty, Chris Burns, Leon Camier, Michael Laverty, Alex Lowes, Sam Lowes, Bradley Smith, Scott Redding, and occasionally even Johnny Rea.
Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta and his son Carlos Ezpeleta, Dorna's Sporting Director, have been aware of these problems for years; the dominance of Italian and Spanish GP riders and teams has existed for some time.
To address this, Dorna has launched numerous Talent Cups, agreed to a collaboration with MotoAmerica manager Wayne Rainey in the USA, and replaced the International Spanish Championship (CEV) with the Moto3 JuniorGP series. To this end, some wildcard entries for talented riders have been co-financed and some teams have been encouraged to sign specific riders from Northern Europe, America, or Australia. But Dorna officials have no significant influence on which riders the MotoGP teams sign. In most cases, even the sponsors don't have a say.
The southern European dominance is also evident in the GP calendar, as these two countries host a total of six of the 22 Grand Prix events, more than a quarter of all events in a sport that aims to be globally attractive. In the important North American market, there is only the Texas GP, while Formula 1 races take place in Miami, Las Vegas and Austin, as well as in Mexico City and Canada.
Renowned British TNT TV commentator Neil Hodgson won the 2003 Superbike World Championship as a Ducati factory rider against Ruben Xaus, achieved seventh place in the "premier class" at the 1995 British GP, and finished 11th in the World Championship on a ROC Yamaha in the same year. He regrets that Dorna never managed to pave the way for Moto2 rider Jake Dixon to move to the "premier class" now that the six-time Moto2 GP winner is moving to the Superbike World Championship. "Looking at the talent in Great Britain, I'd say we'll have to wait at least eight years before we see another Brit in MotoGP," Hodgson told GPOne.com. "But it's more likely to be ten."
A look at the mediocre Moto3 World Championship rider Scott Odgen reveals: in his first four years of Moto3 World Championship racing, he only achieved a fifth, seventh, eighth, and a tenth place. Currently, with 43 points from the first 18 races, he remains the best Briton in 18th place in the World Championship.
Stefan Bradl hoped at the start of his 2021 Rookies Days program to be able to introduce at least one of his talents to the Red Bull Rookies Cup in his second year. But even after five years of his development program, no German talent has qualified for this successful junior series. "Anina Urlaß and Thias Wenzel recently attended the Rookies Cup Selection meeting in Guadix. Anina finished fourth in the Northern Talent Cup in her second year, Thias in third. But the selection committee did not select them for the 2026 Rookies Cup."
"In the first three years of the Rookies Days, we identified the first promising talents and supported them individually. The goal was always for them to make it into the Red Bull Rookies Cup, but unfortunately, they didn't achieve that," Bradl laments. "We then competed with Thias Wenzel at a British Talent Cup race in Donington in 2023."
In 2025, the German Fynn Kratochwil, coached by former German 250cc GP rider Dirk Heidolf, won the Northern Talent Cup, which automatically qualifies him for the 2026 Red Bull Rookies Cup. He used to join the Stefan Bradl Rookies Days two or three times.
Exceptionally talented Kratochwil, who already beat most of his opponents in the MiniGP series, was in a class of his own in the 2026 Northern Talent Cup: 12 wins and one third place in 14 races. Kratochwil comes from Mühlhausen in Thuringia, about 200 km from the Sachsenring; he turned 15 on August 12th.
"Kratochwil now has the best and brightest prospects of becoming the next German GP rider," says Bradl. "He has the best training opportunities, trains the most of all Germans, and gets to ride a lot in Spain because his parents support him a lot, including financially. This allows him to put in a lot of effort and develop his talent. Fynn will most likely race the ETC in 2026 in addition to the Rookies Cup. He'll turn 16 next August; however, he can only advance to the Moto3 World Championship at 17, if he's among the top 3 in the Rookies Cup. That means that Kratochwil will not be racing in the Moto3 World Championship in 2027. He can join the Moto3 World Championship only in 2028 and won't advance to the MotoGP World Championship until 2032 at the earliest, if he wins everything in the other classes beforehand."
Stefan Bradl is following Honda's upward trend in the MotoGP World Championship with great interest. He is pleased with the improved structures that have been evident since the arrival of Technical Director Romano Albesiano at HRC, as well as the progress in the Honda RC213V's engine performance, aerodynamics, and chassis.
The 35-year-old German, now in his eighth year as a MotoGP test rider at Honda, is excited to see what influence German engine designer Kurt Trieb will have on the further development of the 1000 cc V4 engine for 2026 and how his arrival will affect the competitiveness of the 850 cc engine for 2027. "I hope that Kurt Trieb will have a great influence and be able to achieve his goals at HRC," Stefan Bradl said in an interview with GPOne.com.
Bradl's HRC contract runs until the end of 2026. Whether he will focus primarily on the development of the 850cc engine in the future, and whether Aleix Espargaró and Takaaki Nakagami will primarily review updates to the current 1000cc engine, remains to be seen by the Bavarian. "Perhaps we'll have some initial information on this at the World Championship finale in Valencia," he says.