Motegi offers first Moto3 title chance for David Alonso
"The only numbers I am going to think about are the gears"
David Alonso will have his first chance to win the 2024 Moto3 world title, and make history for Colombia, at this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix.
The CFMOTO Gaviota Aspar rider arrives at Motegi with a 97-point lead over Dani Holgado, with Ivan Ortola (-105 points) and Collin Veijer also clinging onto a slim world championship chance (-108 points).
Winner of nine grands prix so far this season, Alonso will be crowned champion on Sunday (with four rounds still remaining) if he holds a title lead of at least 100 points.
In other words, he needs to beat Holgado by at least three points and not concede more than five to Ortola and seven to Veijer.
But the 18-year-old insists he won’t be doing an maths on the bike.
"In Japan, the only numbers I am going to think about are the gears,” he said.
“I am going to listen a lot to my team and try to stay in a bubble.
“Jorge Martínez ‘Aspar’ always tells me that I do not have to prove anything to anyone, that you have to race out of passion and not because you want to prove something.
“I do not have to rush to do things, that will be my mentality in Japan. I don't want the pressure of the numbers, on track I want to leave them aside.”
A tenth win of the season for Alonso, who will move up to Moto2 with CFMOTO Aspar next season, would not only clinch the crown on Sunday but equal Joan Mir’s record for most Moto3 victories in a single year.
Marc Marquez and Fausto Gresini are the only other riders to have taken 10 wins in a single lightweight class season, during the 125cc era, with Valentino Rossi setting the record of 11 125GP wins in 1997.
Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
