Despite having had great champions in the past like Kevin Schwantz, Nicky Hayden, or Wayne Rainey, MotoGP does not have any American riders in the grid. Joe Roberts, who competes in Moto2, is the highest placed, but his performances in the intermediate category do not show that he is exceptional. Carmelo Ezpeleta, CEO of Dorna, spoke about this lack of American riders.
The Spaniard explained to the website GPOne.com that potential future riders need to start being developed from a very young age, and the USA does not have as good a route to MotoGP as it did in the past:
– In order to have American riders, or from anywhere else, we need to start from a young age. In the USA, in the past, WSBK was a route to reach MotoGP, now with MotoAmerica that is not the case, even though it is a high-level championship and our relationship with Rainey is great.
According to Ezpeleta, being able to have championships similar to the European and Asian Talent Cups will be under consideration, although he admits that it will not be as easy to implement them in the United States:
– We have to think about smaller championships and figure out how to have championships similar to the ones we have in Europe or Asia. In the United States, there is some difficulty because of the minimum age of the riders, but we will try to have American riders.
