Aleix Espargaro will announce that he will retire at the end of the season.

After twenty seasons in the MotoGP World Championship, Aleix Espargaro will announce this Thursday, at the start of his home Grand Prix, on the track where he grew as an athlete and as a person, that he will retire at the end of the season. a season after 340 Grands Prix and 7,323 days as a driver.

Aley wanted to make this announcement at a press conference scheduled for three fifteen days this Thursday, at home, with his family and friends, although he still has 15 major awards ahead of him and is waiting for what he can explain. , motivated by the need to make room for new faces in the Aprilia box, of which he will certainly remain a part in the future, although no longer as a regular rider.

Aleix was Espargaro’s “bad boy”, lanky, absent-minded and bespectacled, at the beginning of the century no one cared about the boy from Granollers and all eyes were on his younger brother Paul, who boasted of his ways. Aleš’s career was always on a knife’s edge, doomed to be a grid-filling driver with no hope of his big moment coming at any moment. But it came.

Genis’s eldest son, probably the only one who blindly believed in him two decades ago, made his guest debut at the Valencia Grand Prix in the 125cc class, the circuit’s last race, in 2004, exactly twenty years ago. And he did so, finishing 24th, almost a minute off the podium, which was completed by Hector Barbera, Andrea Dovizioso and Alvaro Bautista, the latter, along with Aleix, the only ones still active today from the 38-rider grid. Among them were the beardless Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner, who fell with ten laps to go.

Argentina 2022, the first and unforgettable victory of Aleix Espargaro

Photo: Aprilia Racing

From then until today, Aleix has competed in 326 Grands Prix, which could become 341 at the end of the season, ending a career in the MotoGP paddock of 7,323 days, starting on October 31, 2004, the day of his debut. , until November 17, 2024, the day when the monkey finally hangs up, both at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Ceste and at the Valencia Grand Prix as a stage.

However, for Aleisha, the greatest award he has tattooed on his skin is the one back home in Catalonia. And when the Espargaros say “race at home”, they do so for a reason: they were born and raised in Granollers, a town adjacent to the Barcelona circuit, and, according to them, as children; At school, almost every day of the year we heard the sounds of engines leaving the Catalan route.

The Catalan’s love for the Montmelo circuit is reflected in his first World Championship podium, third place in the 2011 Moto2 race, completing a podium that included Stefan Bradl and Marc Marquez. And the last one so far: the victory achieved last year at the MotoGP Catalunya GP, when he beat Maverick Viñales and Jorge Martin.

The last “old school” MotoGP is leaving

Along the way, three victories in the premier class, the first and memorable one – in Argentina in 2022 and no less spectacular – at Silverstone in England in 2023, as well as second place and seven third places, six of which in MotoGP.

In Espargaro, of course, there is no driver who will go down in history with an extensive track record, although thousands and thousands of drivers have much less, but we are dealing with the essence of a self-taught driver, persistent and hardworking, never giving up and sticking to his goal to the end style. The last of the “old school” on the MotoGP grid, a rider who always defended the safety of his fellow professionals to the “bosses” and never held his tongue, which caused him many headaches.

Results aside, Aleix’s great achievement, his great work and of course what he will be remembered for for a long time to come is that he once again placed a factory like the Piaggio Group on the MotoGP map through Aprilia team.

Aleix Espargaro in 2009–2020 with Pramac Ducati in his early years in the top category.

Photo: Pramac Racing

When in 2016, after two seasons as an official Suzuki rider, the Japanese decided not to renew the Spaniard, which left Aleisha with a crisis situation and great prospects of losing his job just as he realized his great dream of achieving official factory equipment. That’s when Aprilia emerged, with no direction, no plan, no budget and no ideas, but with two MotoGP seats and the desire to push the project forward.

Aleix put on his overalls and began working with Romano Albesiano and his technical team to develop the RS-GP, a bike that was not at its best in 2017 but is now struggling to win. Great work and legacy of “il capitano”, the boss of Aprilia, the man who gave everything for the Noale house and whose last service is undoubtedly to make way for the arrival of a new, young and competitive rider. what his box has been like for the past eight years.

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