From 250 to Moto2: history of the “middle class” from 1949 to 2022

After the shakedown from 31 January to 2 February in Sepang reserved for MotoGP test riders and rookies and after the subsequent tests on 5-6 February with the big names in the premier class who on 11 will take to the track again in Mandalika for the “Officials test ”, on 11 February in Portimao it will be the turn of Moto3 and Moto2. Finally, on March 6, in Losail, the start of the 2022 World Championship. All the spotlight is on MotoGP, in the first season after Rossi, the 9-time world champion-star, the only rider to have won the title in four different classes (125, 250, 500, MotoGP), at the start of the world championship without interruption for 26 seasons, from 1996 to 2021. There is also expectation for Moto3, the minor and starting category in the world championship circus, and for Moto2, the middle and selection class, with 140 hp motorcycles at 12,250 rpm and 300 km / h, which then allows the best to jump into the premier class. Category, Moto2, which still after twelve seasons from its world debut, raises questions about its validity. Because? Because, it was once said, it is diversity that improves the breed.

Pass category?

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The single motorization can lead to technical flattening and takes away one of the fundamental elements of interest for motorcycling, which is that of the dispute between motorcycles (and engines) of different manufacturers. The other side of the coin, pro Moto2, is that at the same time the “single engine” lowers costs and favors balance on the track, with racing shows. The facts of recent years show that nothing is automatic in motorcycling and that not even a world title in Moto3 or Moto2 “guarantees” success in MotoGP: however, emerging in the lower classes, in particular proving to be a winner in the middle category, was and it is an important condition for obtaining the pass to the premier class, which everyone aspires to.

Many engines and displacements

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The Moto2 world championship was introduced in 2010 to replace the 250 class in the World Championship since 1949. On November 8, 2009, in Valencia, the 250 class race was held for the last time, closing a great history that lasted 60 years. Large motorcycles, those “two-half” single-cylinder and multi-cylinder (2-4-6 cylinders, 2 and 4-stroke) between 1949 and 1968 (the last season with the free splitting of the engines) and then from 1970 the two-cylinder 2-stroke, light ones , fast cornering, difficult to take to the limit, techniques and training enhanced the talent of the pilots: the last 80 kg with a power of 90 hp, 280 km / h (at Mugello in 1’52, times equaled only ten years later with the 600 Moto2, with more performing tires and engines with almost triple cubic capacity). The end of the 250 was decided by Dorna to close the epic of two-stroke engines and the 125 too will leave the field two years later to the Moto3 250 mono 4-stroke. The first Moto2 regulation imposed a single Honda four-cylinder 600 cc 4-stroke engine (derived from the Cbr 600 RR) with 150 Hp limited to 130 Hp to guarantee its duration in at least three races, as well as Dunlop tires and a single electronic control unit, only for the data collection: motorcycles with the minimum weight set at 135 kg. In 2019 we switched to the Triumph 765 cc three-cylinder engine derived from the Daytona Supersport 675 cc and brought to 140 hp with a speed of 300 km / h.

Attack on the crown

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Thirty riders at the start in 2022: the 18-year-old new Moto3 champion Pedro Acosta is particularly eagerly awaited as he immediately aims for a top season for his immediate transition to MotoGP in 2023. From the Moto3 comes the Romagna Niccolò Antonelli (26 years) in a team with the Piedmontese Celestino Vietti (21 years) in the Sky Racing VR46. The Marchigiano Romano Fenati (26 years old) is back in the middle category, companion of Fermin Aldeguer in the SpeedUp Boscoscuro Team and the Rimini rookie Alessandro Zaccone (23 years old) arrives in the Gresini Team with the Czech Filip Salac (21 years old). In the spotlight the Lombard Tony Arbolino (21 years old, teammate of Sam Lowes in the Marc Vds Racing Team Kalex), the Turin Celestino Vietti (21 years old) and the 24 year old from Prato Moto3 2019 world champion Lorenzo Dalla Porta in the Italtrans Racing Team Kalex Team with Joe Roberts. Last call for 34 year old Capitoline veteran Simone Corsi, in the MV Agusta Forward Racing team together with Marcos Ramirez. Many riders from Moto3 this year also due to the strong turnover in the middle class, starting with the two rivals at the 2021 title, the 23-year-old Australian son Remy Gardner (champion) and the 21-year-old Spaniard Raul Fernandez. To close with the Americans Cameron Baubier and the rookie Sean Dylan Kelly of American Racing Kalex; with Argentine rookie Gabriel Rodrigo partner of confirmed Bo Bendsneyder in Sag Team Kalex; with Aron Canet and Jorge Navarro substitutes for Manzi and Garzò in the Pons Team Kalex; with the very young talent Barry Baltus joined by Zonta van den Goorbergh in the RW Racing GP Kalex team.

The differences with the past

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Returning to the relationship between today’s middle category, the Moto2, and that of the past, the 250, the main difference, in addition of course to the displacement and totally different bikes, is that today Moto2 is a “transition” category with the best riders (sometimes those with the most robust suitcase) who arrive from Moto3 to aim for MotoGP while the riders of the “old” world championship did not consider the 125, but not even the 250, transit classes towards the premier class, at the time the 500. Certainly, there were many riders who made the entire route from 125 to 250, to 350 and 500, feeling at ease, racing well and winning races and titles in all displacements, but just as many great champions were involved in racing exclusively (not for a matter of physique, or not only for that) in the 125 and 250. In 61 years of the 250 world championship, from 1949 to 2009, the Italian drivers have won 22 world titles, from the first of Bruno Ruffo (1949) to the last one by Marco Simoncelli (2008). This is the list: Ruffo su Guzzi (1949 and 1951); Dario Ambrosini on Benelli (1950); Enrico Lorenzetti on Guzzi (1952); Carlo Ubbiali on MV Agusta (1956, ’59, ’60); Tarquinio Provini on MV Agusta (1958); Walter Villa on Harley Davidson (1974, ’75, ’76); Mario Lega on Morbidelli (1977); Luca Cadalora on Honda (1991 and 1992); Max Biaggi on Aprilia (1994, ’95, ’96) and on Honda (1997); Loris Capirossi on Aprilia (1998); Valentino Rossi on Aprilia (1999); Marco Melandri on Aprilia (2002); – Manuel Poggiali – San Marino – on Aprilia (2003); Marco Simoncelli on Gilera (2008). In twelve Moto2 championship seasons, from 2010 to 2021, the Italian riders have won the title three times: in 2017 with Franco Morbidelli, in 2018 with Francesco Bagnaia, in 2020 with Enea Bastianini.

Italians absolute protagonists

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In particular, in the “old” 250, Italian manufacturers and drivers have always been protagonists. And it was precisely an all-Italian combination, in 1949, that won the first quarter-liter world title: the superb Veronese stylist and finisseur Bruno Ruffo with the single-cylinder Guzzi Gambalunghino from 27 Hp at 7,500 rpm from 180 km / h . The Italians, who had emerged from the whirlpool of the war tragedy and then from the storm of the civil war, rediscovered their passion for sport, exalting themselves in cycling for the duels of Coppi and Bartali and in motorcycling for the fights in the Gran Fondo and on the national and foreign circuits between the Verona area. Bruno Ruffo, standard bearer of the Guzzi, the motorbikes with the eagles of Mandello, and the Cesena Dario Ambrosini, his counterpart from Romagna on Benelli, with the motorcycles of the Leone, the two-shaft twin cam from Pesaro with 28 HP above 8,000 rpm. Fiery duels, between the two standard-bearers of Guzzi and Benelli engaged both in the great Italian races and in the fiery rounds of that first world championship in ’49, with already on the horizon a group of young Italian lions led by Umberto Masetti and Carlo Ubbiali and immediately after by Libero Liberati, Remo Venturi, Tarquinio Provini, Silvio Grassetti, all guys who had to deal with the irreducible “old guard” led by the stainless Nello Pagani, in that opening of the 1949 world champion 125 (on Mondial) even touching the title of the 500 (on Gilera), in fact lost due to regulatory / bureaucratic shackles.

This is not the place to remember the 250 that have made history (the post-war Guzzi and Benellis, the twin-cylinder MV, the single-cylinder twin-shaft Morini, the Spanish Ossa and Bultaco, the Aermacchi and the single-cylinder MotoBI rods and rockers, the MZ 2-stroke twin-cylinder with rotating disc, the Benelli “quattro”, the Honda 6-cylinder, the Yamaha 4-cylinder 2-stroke, the Kawasaki and the Morbidelli 2-stroke twin, then the Aprilia. The same for the riders: Hailwood (3 titles in 250 out of 9 total), Read and Biaggi with 4 titles each, Ubbiali, Villa, Mang with three titles, then 2 titles each Redman, Lorenzo, Ballington, Ruffo, Haas, Cadalora, Pedrosa, Lavado, Pons and a title for Valentino Rossi, Spencer, Capirossi, Sandford, Provini, Braun, Poggiali, Ambrosini, Lorenzetti, Muller, Carruthers, Could, Saarinen, Lega, Sarron, Kocinsky, Harada, Jacque, Kato, Melandri, Simoncelli, Aoyama.

Italy, with its drivers, is at the top of the 250 classification with 22 world titles won ahead of Great Britain (9 titles), Germany (7), Spain (6), Japan and France (3), United States , Rhodesia, South Africa, Venezuela (2), Australia, San Marino, Finland (1). Among the Italians, in addition to the aforementioned, there were as many great drivers, albeit “without a crown” including Renzo Pasolini, Silvio Grassetti, Angelo Bergamonti, Bruno Spaggiari, Gilberto Milani, Loris Reggiani, Graziano Rossi, Franco Uncini, Virginio Ferrari , Marco Lucchinelli, Giuseppe Visenzi, Doriano Romboni.

An unnecessary jump

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In that first world championship in ’49 and in the following seasons, it was often the rider who made the difference and sometimes a brilliant mechanic was enough to transform a losing bike into an impregnable one. Two of the greatest champions of all time, Ubbiali and Provini, both at the court of Count Agusta who “put attention” and called “clown” even to champions consecrated not in the day, have never competed in the “queen class” , at the time the 500. Why? Certainly not for fear of the weight, power, speed of the half-liter also because, especially on mixed circuits or in the wet, they rode their “duemmezzo” on the same times – or thereabouts – of the racing cars with double the displacement. In that 1949 world championship, as well as in other seasons up to the end of the 60s, the 500 did not always represent the top both technically and competitively. Many riders raced in 500s because it was more… “easier”, with more affordable and less expensive bikes for “private individuals”, with fewer battles on the track. The displacement technically most fought and where the handle mattered most was for years the 250: a cross between the lightness of the 125 and the power of the 500. But riders of the caliber of Ubbiali and Provini, however, have never made the jump in 500 not for personal choice, but for the obligation of the house, whose technical, commercial and image requirements made it necessary to compete in 125 and 250.

The modern revolution

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Finally, another detail that further demonstrates how different that motorcycling was from today. Today, every boy who embarks on a career as a rider aims at MotoGP, for image, prestige and for money. At that time Ubbiali, 9 times world champion, King of small and medium displacements, had the highest popular and media following and earned at MV even double the amount of Surtees and Duke, “emperors” of the 500. In today’s motorcycling, risks and passion apart, everything has changed since that first world championship edition in 1949, from that motorcycling of the days of courage. Can the lessons of champions such as Ubbiali, great pilots anyway, be brought back up to date without the “obligation” of the premier class? In other words, can a sixteen year old boy engaged in Moto3 today and then immediately after in Moto2 continue to compete in “his” category without the hassle of moving to MotoGP, always and in any case?