{"id":254394,"date":"2025-11-01T01:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T01:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254394\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T01:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T01:11:12","slug":"motogp-news-politics-stop-joel-kelso-stepping-up-to-moto2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254394\/","title":{"rendered":"MotoGP news: \u2018Politics\u2019 stop Joel Kelso stepping up to Moto2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\u2018Politics\u2019
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMoto3 rider Joel Kelso led the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island. Image: Russell Colvin<\/p>\n

The Australian is in his fourth season of the lightweight class with his fourth different team.<\/p>\n

Kelso debuted in 2021 with CIP Green Power Team, making four Moto3 starts that season before going full-time with them in 2022.<\/p>\n

One-year deals followed with Prustel GP, Boe Motorsports, and LevelUp-mta from 2023 to 2025.<\/p>\n

In 2026, he will join the MLav Racing Team.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a turbulent career, to say the least. Although Kelso said \u201cit wasn\u2019t planned\u201d that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went through the first year with many injuries with broken legs and whatnot and then the second year, the same, broken legs,\u201d Kelso told Speedcafe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen the third and now we\u2019re in a strong stage, but we couldn\u2019t find a way up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Moto2, it\u2019s a lot of politics to get up, let\u2019s say. I\u2019m still there fighting to try achieve the dream to go to MotoGP one day and hopefully step to Moto2 in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelso\u2019s arrangement with MLav Racing Team is a two-year deal. However, there is an option to leave after 2026 if he gets a Moto2 opportunity.<\/p>\n

\"Moto3<\/p>\n

Moto3 rider Joel Kelso celebrates second place in the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix. Image: Russell Colvin.<\/p>\n

The North Territory-born rider who grew up in Queensland said being from the bottom of the planet has its hurdles with the lion\u2019s share of riders from Spain.<\/p>\n

Of the top 10 riders in Moto3 this year, seven of them are Spanish. Kelso is the highest-placed non-Spanish rider.<\/p>\n

He sits fifth in the championship with two races remaining.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s exactly why it\u2019s difficult to step up to Moto2, it\u2019s all politics at the end of the day,\u201d Kelso explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the sport we\u2019re in, and we all know that. Hopefully it will change in the future, but at the moment it\u2019s like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, with three podiums, we were second in the championship, we were trying to negotiate for Moto2. It\u2019s just not possible at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about money in the end \u2013 and if their sponsors are from Europe, they want European riders. Obviously, if you\u2019re winning everything, of course you\u2019re gonna go to Moto2, so my goal is just trying to win everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, if you\u2019re winning everything, you go up, for sure, without a doubt. It\u2019s all I can focus on, for sure. You can\u2019t rely too much on just doing decent results, you\u2019ve gonna be at the top.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year has been Kelso\u2019s best in the championship. After injuries plagued him in year one and year two, he finally found himself consistently inside the top 10 this year.<\/p>\n

In the 20 races to date, 15 of them have been top 10 finishes \u2013 and he has been on the podium four times. A breakthrough Moto3 win remains elusive, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely been a year that we\u2019ve made a massive step and we\u2019re in the fight in every single race now for the podium,\u201d said Kelso.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to be consistent. If you\u2019re up and down, it doesn\u2019t show you your real speed. We definitely made a massive step this year and we\u2019ve already got three podiums this year and hopefully add a couple more by the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just two Moto3 races remain this season at Portimao on November 7-9 and Valencia on November 14-16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moto3 rider Joel Kelso led the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island. Image: Russell Colvin The Australian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,136066,806,805,803,804,7499,85],"class_list":["post-254394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-joel-kelso","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-slot4","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}