Former MotoGP world champion Wayne Gardner has urged his 16-year-old son Remy to enjoy himself and not do anything “silly” in his Moto3 wildcard ride at this weekend’s Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix.
Remy will line up in the lower grand prix series 25 years after his father won the premier class race on the same Phillip Island track in 1989.
The youngster made his GP debut at Misano in Italy, shortly after being run over in a horrific crash in Spain last month.
Gardner believes the experience will be vital ahead of this weekend’s race.
“It just gave him that little taste of what to expect at Phillip Island,” Gardner said.
“To turn up there with his own team and his own bike is a big difference, and I think he should perform pretty well.”
He said he has avoided giving his son an overload of advice.
“We have no expectations on his results. He’s very self-driven and self-motivated, so I don’t have to add any pressure,” he said.
“My comment to Remy is to go out there and have fun, enjoy the atmosphere and have a great weekend.
“It’s just a case of not doing anything silly, and if he just enjoys himself for the weekend, I think he’s going to have a reasonable result.”
Gardner admits he was severely shaken after watching Remy crash at Navarro in September.
“That accident was just horrific, for me in particular. To be watching that and watching our son get run over. I nearly threw up. I couldn’t breathe and I had to have a cold shower after it.
“I don’t know what happened, but miracles do prevail and he didn’t even get one scratch on him, which was quite amazing. I had all these visions of internal injuries, a spinal injury … he managed not to get one scratch out of it, and he wanted to go out and race, but fortunately the team couldn’t get his bike ready in time, so he gave it a rest. One week later, he’s in the Grand Prix at Misano.”
Gardner believes Remy has the ability to move fulltime to grand prix racing next year but would need to adapt to a major change in lifestyle.
“I believe that he’s talented enough and without a doubt I believe that he’s smart enough and confident enough,” he said.
“My concern comes because it’s a big jump from the Spanish championship to Grand Prix, not so much in lap time, but in the change of atmosphere and the change of countries all the time that goes with this travelling circus.
“But I think he’s adaptable and I think he’ll learn extremely fast over the year.”
