Max Racing Team to Contest 2020 Moto3 Season on Husqvarna FR 250 GP
After a four-year absence from the grid, Husqvarna returns to Moto3 with the Max Racing Team, owned by four-time 250cc Grand Prix World Champion Max Biaggi. The Husqvarna FR 250 GP motorcycles will be raced in the 2020 Moto3 World Championship by Romano Fenati and Alonso López. Former German road racer Peter Öttl, who has five GP wins to his credit, will manage the team.
“We are very much looking forward to seeing the return of Husqvarna Motorcycles to the MotoGP paddock,” said CEO KTM AG Stefan Pierer. “The Moto3 class represents the perfect platform to showcase the Husqvarna brand, as we have seen in the past during the 2014 and 2015 seasons. With Husqvarna Motorcycles continuing to expand in the direction of performance street motorcycles, we believe the added exposure from racing in the Moto3 class will help us maintain the brand’s continued growth for many years to come.”
Mercurial and controversial, Fenati has a strong record in Moto3. He has won 11 Moto3 races in his career, along with appearing on the podium 24 times, and taking four poles. In 2019, as part of the VNE Snipers team running a Honda NSF250RW, Fenati took a win at the Austrian GP. Fenati, who will be 24 years old when the 2020 Moto3 season starts at Losail International Circuit in Qatar on March 8, began GP racing in 2012.
López turns 18 years old a few months before the 2020 opener in Qatar. 2020 will be his third year in Moto3, after two years on a Honda with the Estrella Galicia 0,0 team. López earned his first Moto3 podium at the 2019 Thailand GP, and has three top-five finishes this year.
“I am very happy that Husqvarna Motorcycles have chosen to support our team for their return to international road racing,” said Max Racing Team Principal Max Biaggi, “Our two riders are both very motivated. With Romano Fenati and Alonso López, we have one experienced and one young rider, but both can deliver strong results.”
Max Racing Team Manager Peter Öttl said, “After my active racing career, I worked for Husqvarna in their Offroad Racing Department, so to be opening another chapter with the brand in 2020 is personally very special to me. We have a close relationship with the company for almost ten years now, and this project is another display of trust, but also a huge responsibility for our team.”
“We’re really excited to be able to bring the Husqvarna Motorcycles brand back into road racing and the Moto3 World Championship,” said Pit Beirer, Motosports Director at KTM. “With the knowledgeable and experienced pairing of Max Biaggi and Peter Öttl heading the team, and riders Fenati and López both more than capable of challenging for race wins, we are really looking forward to seeing what the Max Racing Team can do in the 2020 season with the Husqvarna FR 250 GP.”
Husqvarna is not a stranger to the Moto3 podium, having reached the rostrum in 2014.
