MotoGP lands at Silverstone this weekend but will there be many union flags on display?

There will be some obvious differences between the MotoGP British Grand Prix this weekend and the F1 equivalent that occurred four weeks previously, but perhaps the most noticeable beyond the number of wheels on show will be the inevitable gulf in crowd figures and the dearth of British prospects.

While F1 fans can bask in the relative parity between three homegrown Grand Prix winners, MotoGP arrives in the UK for the third year in a row without a British rider on the grid, never mind one who can fill the role of a contender for the chequered flag on Sunday afternoon.

So why no British riders?

MotoGP has gripped fans with a mini-stream of narratives in 2024: Marc Marquez’s plight on one of the eight title-winning Ducati machines against the imperious form of reigning world champion Pecco Bagnaia (vanquisher of the last four rounds), championship leader Jorge Martin’s bid for the title before his shock defection to Aprilia for 2025, the emergence of 20-year-old wonderkid Pedro Acosta and the efforts of the once-mighty Japanese factories to emerge from a dry spell for Honda and Yamaha that stretches back almost 18 months.

As the series awakens from a summer-break slumber for round 10 of 20, fans in Northamptonshire will again notice the void of a British flag in a contest where seven other nationalities are represented.

Before he retired at the end of 2020 and slipped into a crucial testing role for Yamaha, the UK’s last MotoGP race winner, Cal Crutchlow, was routinely asked about the dwindling presence of British racers in the category. At one stage there were three, with Crutchlow accompanied by Bradley Smith and Scott Redding, with others like Sam Lowes and James Toseland making fleeting appearances.

Crutchlow used to say that the Grand Prix paddock was “cut-throat” while a number of other reasons were regularly cited for the erosion of numbers and quality: the prevalence of Superbikes in the UK, the narrower mentality of youngsters and families and the difficulty of embracing European competition and various development series. The lack of funding and interest generally for the sport was another hurdle and the sheer divide of class with southern European countries producing fleets of teens groomed in a motorcycling culture with proactive federations and high standard facilities meant the odds were stacked.

“I took the punt and came across,” said Sam Lowes, Britain’s most prolific Grand Prix winner, who moved into Moto2 after winning the World Supersport Championship in 2013 and completed 10 GP seasons with 10 wins and 26 podiums before joining WorldSBK for 2024 at the age of 33. But he had just one ill-fated term in the MotoGP division with the then-ailing Aprilia. “It would have been easy for me to go to Superbike with a two-year deal and with triple the money compared to what I had. I was 23. I had some good advisors and people around me and I think it paid off. I achieved. I wanted to do more… but I think most people do.”

What’s being done to fix this?

Schemes and opportunities for British upcomers are arguably more prolific now than they ever have been. The British Talent Cup is now six years old (and round five of 2024 taking place at Silverstone this same weekend), the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup provides a bona fide shop window with seven fixtures at MotoGP rounds as part of the support card.

Knowing the potential of the market, MotoGP promoter Dorna Sports actively supports a strain of potential British stars through their “Road to MotoGP” programme and JuniorGP contest: the main feeder championship to Grand Prix. For older or bigger racers, the European Moto2 championship is also increasing in prestige with the last two champions (German and Australian) entering Moto2 Grand Prix. TNT Sports are a major broadcasting partner for MotoGP in the UK, so increasing diversity is not the only interest for the powers-that-be.

The wheels are cranking and Dorna’s union with former GP rider, Superbike racer and TNT Sports commentator Michael Laverty means Britain has a conduit through the BTC, JuniorGP and Moto3 courtesy of the MLav Racing team. The Northern Irishman has been straining for the £1.5m annual budget to compete in Moto3. “The initial junior team in the UK was really hard in terms of getting any funding or support, so I thought it would be easier to build it from the top down,” Laverty tells us. “The idea was to get a Moto3 team running, bring the funding in and make the rest to create the bottom rungs of the ladder.”

MLav Racing is the only British route - Laverty also wants to give chances to British mechanics and engineers - through the levels and near the top of the current rundle is 20-year-old Moto3 rider Scott Ogden who has made the commitment of living, training and racing on the continent but is still searching for his first Grand Prix silverware after almost three GP seasons. Laverty wants to establish the Honda GP team, that lost its title sponsor for 2024, as a major player but is now walking the divide between giving Brits time to develop and appeasing Dorna’s British remit against the possibility of hiring continental racers who can bring backing and results that will guarantee sustainability and more profile. It’s a marginal call.

“Moto3 kids are so good now,” Lowes observed at the tail end of 2023. “They come in right away and they have the speed, the racecraft, the ability, the way to talk with media and their way to ‘be’ in the paddock. They are young, but ‘old’. Britain doesn’t have that… but the [European] Moto2 class means older ones, 18 or 19, can also have a way in.

“It could be a good thing. It’s the only chance we’ve got. Being 17 or 18 and being able to live with these other guys in the Spanish championship; we won’t have someone like that for a long time. I go training with some of them in Spain and they are flying. It’s a lean spell. It’s going to be a tough few years. For the ones that do arrive here they need to take some risks.”

Are there any British hopes in Moto2 and Moto3?

Britain has shone in Moto3 and Moto2 thanks to riders like John McPhee and Danny Kent, who is still the last world champion for his country after his 2015 Moto3 crown. MotoGP glory remains elusive though. For many, Moto2 rider Jake Dixon carries the brightest torch and made his breakthrough in 2023 with two victories in the Triumph-powered intermediate category, but the 28-year-old’s lack of consistency and perennial underdog status has trapped him on the teetering verge of MotoGP; where he is often talked of for a potential saddle but mainly overlooked.

As for the wonderfully long and technical layout at Silverstone, it’s now almost 10 years since the British national anthem rang out around the PA system. Kent was the last native GP winner in Moto3 in his championship-winning season. Despite the best efforts of Barry Sheene, Jeremy McWilliams and Crutchlow, all of whom grabbed a podium finish either at Silverstone or Donington Park, Crutchlow as runner-up in 2016, no Briton has ever won in the premier class since the British Grand Prix departed the Isle of Man after the 1976 event.

Ironically, for a series that was first conquered by a British rider on a British motorcycle when the FIM World Championship was a six-round series in 1949, MotoGP will toast its 75th anniversary this weekend. The teams will pay homage with vintage, dedicatory liveries on race day but real home-grown heroics will have to wait a few more years and probably until the next commemoration.

In the meantime, British Grand Prix fans can take more than enough solace in the present state of MotoGP, and the fierce speeds and spectacle that has set at least three new attendance benchmarks this year. New lap records have been set at all but one of the nine Grands Prix so far thanks to aerodynamic innovation and the sticky 2024 Michelin tyres. If the weather holds firm then more records will surely fall.