France hosts the 1,000th MotoGP Grand Prix in history, Sunday May 14, at Le Mans.
The Bugatti Le Mans circuit is hosting the 1,000th MotoGP Grand Prix in history on Sunday May 14, for a major motorcycle festival in France. With a Fabio Quartararo world champion in 2021 and a Johann Zarco who is fighting for the podiums, the French have been experiencing good times for a few years. But behind these two pilots, France has only one representative in the lower categories, with Lorenzo Fellon, in Moto3. With nearly 30,000 speed motorbike licensees, the Federation is trying to attract more young riders to train the next generation. Sébastien Poirier, its president, explains to franceinfo: sport the areas of work to expand the talent pool.
Franceinfo:sport: Fabio Quartararo was world champion in 2021, Johann Zarco is a regular contender for the podium. Did their successes help popularize the bike in France?
Sebastien Poirier: Absolutely. Last year, the French Motorcycle Federation passed the milestone of 100,000 licensees for the first time, reaching the record figure of 102,000 licensees. So French motorcycling is doing very well, and in particular speed motorcycling, which represents around 30,000 riders. I think a federation shines through its champions; this is the case in all sports. And obviously, having a world champion Fabio and a Johann running each Grand Prix gives a very good image of the bike.
Behind these champions, however, the next generation is long overdue. How is the Federation working to obtain a broader talent pool?
Unfortunately, we don’t have a French rider in Moto2 and we only have one in Moto3. Behind, we have a pool of sparse but quality pilots, which must be expanded. So the idea is to reconstitute the mass to have a few more French people in the Moto2 and 3 categories in the coming years. We have restructured the high-level speed sector. We now have eight regional championships throughout the territory, on karting tracks, as well as stronger and more marked French championships. Then we also support riders who ride in the European Talent Cup, which is the benchmark European championship where 95% of the MotoGP field got their start. It is undoubtedly through them that we will be able to integrate the international grids.
Fabio Quartararo had chosen to move to Spain to finish his training…
Absolutely, and Johann Zarco had done the same in Italy. Our idea is to implement what Spain and Italy have achieved, by organizing a lot more races on karting tracks, like them, because they are slower tracks but more conducive to apprenticeship and the first competitions. And then there must be as little difference in level as possible between the French championship and the European Talent Cup to properly supervise the drivers who enter it. We have never put so many resources into detecting talent, to support them when they go abroad. We created a France hopefuls team in 2023 to have three pilots who are helped more specifically by the Federation. We are fully aware of having two very good ambassadors in MotoGP, but we must not stop there and we must build up a larger pool of riders to have French people in all categories within a few years.
Does France have enough circuits for speed motorcycling?
There are around fifty speed circuits in France, but not all of them accept motorcycles. There are therefore large areas such as Brittany or Rhône-Alpes which do not have a speed circuit for motorcycling and these are two shortcomings which penalize us. The more circuits there are that allow motorcycling, the more we can develop the high level. The objective is also to reduce our noise emissions, but this will take place over a relatively long period of time because we don’t have all the keys in hand. It also depends on the manufacturers and we are in contact with them, because we are fully aware that noise pollution is a problem on certain circuits. But our main concern is first of all to certify as many karting tracks as possible, to accommodate as many young people as possible.
