Angel Nieto Team announces Moto2 announces new Moto2 challenge for 2019
The Ángel Nieto Team will have a new challenge for 2019, as the team prepares to enter the Moto2 World Championship in hand with KTM. The Spanish team will next year launch an ambitious new project that runs from the Spanish Championship through to the top level of Moto2, creating a pathway for the development of young riders from the grass roots of racing to the doorstep of MotoGP.
The Ángel Nieto Team extends and strengthens a partnership with KTM that has already achieved leadership of the Junior Moto3 World Championship and Moto3 victory in the French Grand Prix at Le Mans. Next year the team will boost its line-up to six of the Austrian factory’s machines: two Moto2, two in Moto3 and two in the Junior Moto3 World Championship.
The move refocuses the team’s efforts on the two smaller categories of the MotoGP World Championship and marks a return to the Moto2 class after an absence of four seasons. The riders that will contest the various championships will be announced in due course.
The team enjoyed its first success in the intermediate category of Grand Prix racing back in 2002, when Fonsi Nieto finished runner-up in the 250cc World Championship, a feat later repeated by Sebastián Porto (2004), Álvaro Bautista (2008) and Julián Simón in Moto2 (2010). In total, the Ángel Nieto Team have taken 31 wins and 115 podiums in the intermediate category and the objective to add to those numbers is clear.
Jorge Martínez “Aspar”:
“We are really very happy to have reached this agreement with KTM, which will allow our project to continue growing with great results. In only our first year together in Moto3 we have already won a Grand Prix, we have finished on the podium and we have been close on several other occasions. Now we will double our efforts and compete together also in Moto2. We are very excited to have a project that starts from base level, in the Junior Moto3 World Championship, and continues through Moto3 to Moto2. Our objective is to make it a winning combination in all categories and for us to get back to being one of the world’s leading teams.”