Remy Gardner: Cal ‘was happy to lend me his bike’

After stepping in for Alex Rins at the German GP, Remy Gardner makes his second Yamaha MotoGP appearance in a row as a wild-card at Silverstone.

The Australian, who raced in MotoGP for Tech3 KTM in 2022 before switching to WorldSBK with Yamaha, was called up by Yamaha at Sachsenring due to hand surgery complications for test rider Cal Crutchlow.

With the Englishman still sidelined, Gardner now takes over his planned wild-card appearance in the British round, where he took victory in his title-winning 2021 Moto2 campaign.

Yamaha stated that Gardner, who finished 19th in Germany, ‘will be trying out several parts for the Yamaha Factory Racing MotoGP Test Team’ this weekend.

“I'm really looking forward to riding the M1 again,” Gardner said. “I send my best wishes to Cal. I spoke to him, and he was happy to lend me his bike for the weekend, which is cool. 

"Hopefully his hand gets better soon, and he gets back to his old ways, riding fast.

“It's going to be a different technical team I'll be working with this weekend compared to the German GP, so we need to start from zero and get familiar with everyone, but that's not so bad. I'm looking forward to the challenge."

Like Monster Yamaha riders Rins and Fabio Quartararo, Gardner will also have a special 75th-anniversary livery M1 at his disposal on Sunday.

“It's also MotoGP's 75th anniversary, so it will be cool on Sunday to see all the special liveries," Gardner added. "Silverstone is a track I like, so I'm really looking forward to that, and I think it will be a bit more fun riding with the M1 in Silverstone than at the Sachsenring.

“Hopefully, we can keep improving from what we did at the Sachsenring and give some more good data to the team, which I think is the most important thing."

Crutchlow had been scheduled to make his first wild-card appearance of the season at Mugello in June, but that was also cancelled due to hand problems.