David Alonso is not a name that is widely known around the world, especially not in America. However, in the world of motorcycle racing, it’s becoming a must-know.
David Alonso is a nineteen-year-old Spanish-Columbian motorcycle racer who is currently competing in the Moto2 championship, one step down from the highest class of MotoGP. However, even though he is currently in this lesser series, Alonso is already being compared to the legends of the sport, such as Marc Márquez and Valentino Rossi.
The reason for these comparisons was his record-breaking second season in the 2024 Moto3 championship, during which his performance was so impressive that he earned the nickname “Baby Goat”. Alonso created amazing stats for himself in this season – 14 victories, 15 podiums, and 7 pole positions (first-place starts) – effectively overthrowing the previous win record in the Moto3 class, held by legend Valentino Rossi, which had been set at 12.
All of these factors contributed to his winning the Moto3 championship, making history as the first Colombian to win a Moto3 title, and earning the respect of many highly regarded racers in the highest class. It also won him the loyalty of his racing team, CFMOTO Inde Aspar Team, as they decided to bring him up to their Moto2 team, taking the seat of another racer who would have been going into his fourth season with them.
David’s journey in Moto2 has not exactly been ideal, unfortunately, and the first clue into what the season would look like was shown from his first test, before the season even started. In Alonso’s Moto2 test, held in Valencia, he finished in fourteenth position, which isn’t necessarily a terrible result, especially for a rookie who had yet to race a bike of that amount of power, but it also isn’t anything to write home about.
David, arguably, did not start in a way that would warrant the amount of hype that had been placed on him the previous season. It wasn’t looking good for Alonso as his teammate, fellow rookie Dani Holgado, was racking up points while David was struggling. This was driven even further as David suffered an injury on his right arm, which inhibited his ability to race to his full extent.
Alonso was looking to be quickly running out of luck as his results were littered with crashes while the weeks went on; however, it was clear that the champion that was inside of him was ready to make an appearance.
And make an appearance it did, when, at the Grand Prix of the United Kingdom, David Alonso showed that he was still deserving of all of the big expectations put upon him, and finished with his first podium of his Moto2 career in third place.
It seemed that following his podium at Silverstone, something clicked into place for the Colombian. While crashes still made appearances on some weekends, most notably at the Grand Prix of the Netherlands, where Alonso crashed out of a podium position near the end of the race, the growth from the start of the season was very clear. It seems that the key to this was the improvement in qualifying specifically, as it’s widely regarded that you have a better chance at finishing in a higher position when you start in a higher position. All of this accumulated into a masterclass at the Grand Prix of Hungary, where the Moto3 champion proved why he is being called the next big thing.
Alonso started the weekend in eighth position, which is a good spot to collect a decent amount of points, at a track that is well known for being one that is hard to make overtakes at. David had a nightmare start, however, where he was slotted into eleventh place at the end of lap one, and expectations weren’t exactly high for a great finish. This means nothing, however, as one doesn’t gain the nickname of “Baby Goat” for nothing, and Alonso was making his way up the grid as the laps went on.
By the time the racers made it to lap nineteen out of twenty-two, David had made his way up to third place, which was already an incredible feat considering this track wasn’t meant to be one where passes would be made, but he wasn’t satisfied yet. With a daring move on the last lap, David Alonso overtook two of the top three championship leaders, Diogo Moreira and Manuel Gonzalez, for his first victory in the Moto2 class.
This win was a very significant one because not only was it David’s first Moto2 win, it was the first win of the Moto2 season for the Aspar team, and it was the first Moto2 win in history for a Colombian racer.
In a series that almost entirely consists of European riders, it’s amazing to see representation by an incredible racer from our side of the Atlantic, which has arguably been completely nonexistent since the departure of the “Kentucky Kid”, Nicky Hayden, in 2013. I wholeheartedly believe that the hype surrounding David Alonso is warranted; he will be the next big thing, and I can’t wait to see what he does in Moto2 next year, as two years was all it took for a championship in Moto3.
I would wish you luck, David Alonso, but something tells me that you won’t need it.
