David Alonso: An authentic Grand Prix star back in the learning phase
The recording-breaking Moto3 world champion talks about the move and mindset of the Moto2 mountain.
By Adam Wheeler.
David Alonso is a fast learner and a quick executioner. The 19-year-old won the 2020 European Talent Cup, the 2021 Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup and the 2024 Moto3 world championship in his second seasons in the respective divisions. Last year he set a record for 14 Grand Prix wins in one term and fashioned a signature tactic of seizing victory from the pack in the last two laps: 11 of those triumphs were nailed by less than half a second.
Now he’s on the path again in Moto2 despite the adversity of a dislocated right shoulder in winter training. Alonso’s short Moto2 trajectory has also been a little bumpy. The opening two rounds saw him off the pace and outside the points in 21st and 20th but he then improved to 14th and 11th before a rash accident at Jerez’s Turn 13 hairpin that also toppled a former Aspar team rider Izan Guevara. He made amends with another 11th last week in Le Mans.
We talk in a dark, cramped section inside the back of the Aspar truck. Alonso has been watching his last Grand Prix on an iPad propped on a makeshift table and a changing area he shares with teammate Daniel Holgado. The luxury confines of the personal space enjoyed by MotoGP riders is still some way off. We speak in Spanish. As usual, David is a smart and articulate talker. The topics are obvious: his recovery, his adaptation, his preparation, his mindset of drifting from GP winner to mid-pack runner. Only a few months into his Moto2 career chapter he is already grasping the value of hindsight.
“We’ve already made some mistakes, and we learned some lessons that will help me in the future because it was not a good winter,” he says, serious for a moment and the large smile gone. “I was moving around a lot and doing different things after winning the championship and I wasn’t using the days I had for me, or for resting…and we paid for it. Still, it’s all experience.”
“Last year was excellent and with such a strong base. Above all, a lot of fun once the pressure of the title had passed,” the smiles is back. “Winning in Moto3 meant I was really busy but now I’m trying to get back to that point by putting a lot of work in a different way.”
What work? “Again, a process,” he answers. “Physically I’m 100% and now training to improve. Moto2 is faster, heavier and you have to be stronger. You have to analyse and think ‘the bike needs this from me…and I need to ride it in this way’. That also means being physically capable to do so. You must constantly change in your career and have the humility to know you have to change.”
Alonso looks young and he is young, one of the most junior in Moto2, and despite his ‘old soul’ and maturity – something that the Aspar team praised constantly in his title-winning year – even the Madrid resident has had to open his eyes and mind to the shifting parameters of his sporting career and in the space of only a few months. “The change from being right at the top to moving right near the bottom is not an easy one mentally,” he admits. “You quickly get used to the rhythm of winning. You get into a bubble that is not quite reality. It’s not permanent and doesn’t last. So, when you start to come down it’s difficult to accept. For example, a lot of my mistakes in pre-season and those in the first races of 2025 I couldn’t really accept. Nor could I realise that I was in a ‘process’. Your mind still wants things that your body is not able to deliver. It’s a conflict! That’s when you a really need good people around you.”
The roles of Jorge ‘Aspar’ Martinez, Team Manager Nico Terol and long-term staff like Communications Officer Vicente Vila cannot be understated for their contribution. It’s a sporting journey that they have taken with numerous riders when the team pivoted from Martinez’ own racing career and since becoming a strong platform for others from 2000. “As a rider he has brutal talent,” Terol told me of Alonso during 2024. “He is very systematic in how he works. There are other hard workers in this paddock but he is intelligent and always looks for what he needs in every moment. He is constantly in the learning process: with the bike, his positioning, his interviews, his English and other languages. From what I see there isn’t a ceiling for this…but he has to do it all with his feet on the ground. I think his group helps a lot, and he listens a lot. When he is winning and when he has a bad result he is the same person and this helps with balance. He is complete. As a person he is all heart. That’s why he’s special.”
Prior to Alonso the other rasping starlet to come through the Aspar system (that has an academy programme stretching into FIM JuniorGP and further) was Guevara, also a vanquisher of Moto3 in just his second season in 2022. The Majorcan is still only 20 but now into his third Moto2 campaign with only one trophy and a slower rate of headway that many expected. Guevara’s plateau on his rapid rise proves the importance of psychology. “Izan has so much talent but in Moto3 it all came so easy,” recalls Terol. “He won his first year in JuniorGP with us, then the world championship and then hit difficulty with Moto2. I don’t think he had the tools to deal with that difficulty and how deal with that low point, simply because he hadn’t had one like it. It was his Achilles heel, and he had goals that he was not ready to match. We tried everything to help to make changes, and he finally picked up in form [towards the end of 2024]. He’s a fantastic rider. He has everything. He just missed a bit of confidence in Moto2.”
Ironically Alonso clipped Guevara braking for Jerez’s hairpin just a few laps into the recent Spanish Grand Prix and in the fight for 9th. Guevara fractured his left foot and Alonso sported bruising on his face from the tumble. It was the mire from 2025 so far.
Somewhat surprisingly, Alonso and fellow Moto2 rookies Ivan Ortola and Collin Veijer have been outshone by another graduate. Holgado stitched together four top ten results in his first four appearances, including an excellent 4th in Qatar. Holgado’s approach of repeated training sessions with larger sportsbikes paid off initially. “It depends on how you want to plan or have your objectives: I believe that if I’m in a category then I’m 100% focused on that,” Alonso counters. “If I’m in Moto3 then I’m totally ‘into’ Moto3 and the style that’s needed and training with the most appropriate bikes. Until that stage is finished then I don’t think about the next one; it means I was able to achieve what I wanted right up until my last race but then maybe ate into what I needed to do for Moto2 and we were late. Dani had a really good pre-season with bigger bikes and was ready for the first races and took those results.”
I ask Alonso to be more specific about analysis and whether he has a feeling on a timeframe for when it all might ‘click’ for him. “Not so much for time,” he ponders “it’s more about using each and every weekend, and what we do with the analysis. In the first race in Thailand I was not braking hard enough. Then in Argentina I was not opening the gas hard enough. We are making changes each time and the evolution is happening. I’m talking with people and looking at data for how this bike has to be ridden. I’m listening to those who have done it and then trying to fix the right style. I’m trying things to discover how to be faster and when I achieve something I remember the technique and then move onto the next step. It’s like this all the time: learning, understanding, consolidation, putting it into practice and then the next thing.”
Alonso’s shining potential is well deserved after 2024 and anticipation remain high. The comparisons with some of the outstanding names of recent MotoGP are merited. Marc Marquez grabbed his first GP podium finish in the eighth race of his first 125cc season and finished the championship in 13th. Alonso took his maiden trophy in his fourth outing and was 3rd by the end of his debut year. Alonso was champion by his second attempt, Marquez by his third, but the current Ducati MotoGP star won his fourth Moto2 Grand Prix and moved up to P2 in the intermediate class as a rookie: something that Alonso will have to push to match. Pedro Acosta outdid both countrymen for Moto3 spoils in the shortest time frame. All the signs are there for Alonso to ape both Marquez and Acosta if he conquers Moto2 in 2026. “I didn’t have the sensation that the category wasn’t for me,” he reflects of his first taste. “I wasn’t understanding how to go fast at first…but I liked it anyway. I liked the bike, and I liked the competition. I know it’s a good preparation for MotoGP.”
“I try to race with calm,” he underlines. “I know I’m young and I need more patience. I’m in a phase that requires patience because I want things instantly…which seems to be the theme these days because we can do so much with our phones. We are used to things happening right away and you forget about a process and an evolution. I’m still learning!”
Photos by Aspar Team.