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As foreshadowed by Speedcafe, the 2021 Moto2 champion will fill in for Alex Rins, who has been sidelined due to injury.
The start will be Gardner’s first in MotoGP since his sole premier class season in 2022 with KTM Tech3, after which he moved to the Superbike World Championship.
“First of all, I hope Alex can have a fast recovery and I wish him the best,” he said.
“I’m really excited about this challenge. I just want to say ‘Thank you so much’ to Yamaha for trusting me to ride this weekend. I will use it as a great experience to learn.
“It’s a new bike, and coming back to MotoGP for one race is always a nice experience, so I’m looking forward to enjoying this weekend, and I’m just extremely happy for this opportunity.
“Once again, a big ‘Thank you’ to Yamaha.”
Rins highsided out of the Dutch Grand Prix at the first corner and has since undergone surgery on his right wrist and right ankle, the latter of which he fractured.
With the MotoGP summer break to follow the Sachsenring event, Gardner is likely to enjoy just the one weekend onboard a Monster Energy Yamaha.
“First of all, let me start by saying that the team is relieved that Alex’ surgery went well and that the injuries he sustained in the highside are not more serious,” said Team Manager Massimo Meregalli.
“We all wish him a speedy recovery, and we hope to welcome him back soon.
“Secondly, we are thankful to Remy Gardner and the GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK team that he can join us at the Sachsenring on such short notice.
“We are sure that this will be an interesting experience for him, but the team will do everything we can to make him feel welcome and supported throughout this weekend’s steep learning curve.
“The Sachsenring is quite peculiar: its narrow and has a lot of left-handers. It’s difficult to overtake there, so a place in Q2 is even more valuable here than usual.
“We expect that this will be challenging, but we are intending to do whatever we can to collect as much data as possible before the summer break.”
Meregalli’s comment about data goes some way to explaining why Yamaha bothered to field a replacement rider when MotoGP rules put them under no such obligation given it is less than 10 days since Rins’ incident.
However, Monster Energy Yamaha needs as much mileage as it can get given the Iwata marque does not have a satellite team until Pramac Racing comes onboard at season’s end, and there are questions over test rider Cal Crutchlow’s fitness after recent surgery.
Rins said of his own, post-Assen operation, “The surgery went well, and I‘m heading home now.
“Unfortunately I‘ll miss the next GP, but I hope to be back very soon.
“Despite this bump in the road, our motivation to keep working is higher than ever.”
Gardner is currently seventh in the WSBK championship standings in his second season with the GRT Yamaha team.
