Alejandro from Majorca: the DNA of a future world champion?

Alejandro from Majorca: the DNA of a future world champion?
Thirty-seven of the 90 riders registered to race in Moto GP, Moto 2 and Moto 3 are Spanish, with, at the time of writing, each championship leader racing under the yellow and red flag of Spain. Automotive journalist Iain Macauley explores the topic further.

Being a follower of such racing, I'd researched, but sort of knew anyway, there was that level of national representation on each grid in 2025.

Cut to a balmy and near-silent 10pm on a Friday night in June in Fornalutx, in Majorca's Tramuntana mountains. The village is on a valley side, and my balcony gives a view across it, and, as darkness falls, I can identify where the mountain roads run by the occasional movement of vehicle headlights.

Cut again, back several decades, to my formative motorcycling days, when, as a 12-year-old I had a small collection of small-capacity bikes I could ride in fields or on private lanes. The family holiday that year was also Majorca, and I was well and truly addicted to motorcycles.

So when on that 2025 Friday night the quiet was progressively broken by the meeeeeee sound of an approaching expansion-chamber-exhaust two-stroke echoing through the valley, the rider crackling up and down the gears, sounding like he or she was travelling at 250mph, the nostalgia of seeing and hearing kids not much older than me on their slow-but-very-fast-sounding mainly Derbi 50s back on that early Majorca holiday gave me goosebumps.

Photo courtesy of H&H Auctions

As an approaching-teen I couldn't wait to get home and emulate those Majorcan kids, even if it was years away from being legal.

But, of course, it wasn't just the bikes, seemingly carefree approach and freedom (and, back then, danger of riding helmet-less) ... but the weather difference between Majorca and Manchester.

Friday night, and that waily-sounding bike was getting closer until I could see the headlight flickering through the trees until it emerged into clear sight a couple of hundred yards below me. Because of the high revs I expected massive velocity. Frankly, when it emerged I suspect a good cyclist could have been travelling faster...

I thought that was the end of the sound show for the evening. But, no, the tortured two-stroke blipped down through the gears, arrived from my right and came to a halt, a mobile phone screen seemed to briefly light up, then frantic revving, what sounded like a race start before it headed away from the village and accelerated to my left up the valley.

I followed the lights and noise across the valley floor, then up the other side to the right of my view, lots of meeee, meeee, meeee noises in the distance, then getting closer, then following the route it had used when first arriving from my right.

But this time it didn't stop, and did two more "laps" before once again arriving at the original halt point at either 250 or 30mph, brakes clearly hit hard, rasp of locked rear wheel, and the mobile phone screen lighting up the instant it stopped, engine dying rather than idling, perhaps indicating a high state of tune. A few seconds later, the shout of a woman from a village house up behind us, clearly a disgruntled mum. "Alejandro" was getting a, er, telling off.

Photo courtesy of Bonhams Cars

Mrs Macauley, by no stretch of the imagination a biker, welcomed the return to silence.

I pondered what I'd just seen and heard. It looked and sounded like a young lad trying to match or break a target time for his three laps of the valley.

I was right. The next morning there was some chatter in a local cafe amongst the few Brits. A waiter serving them picked up on it: "Ees Alejandro. Ee want to be Lorenzo. He fifteen. Very fast than others. Also noisy," he laughed. They had no idea who "Lorenzo" was, but I knew he was referring to Majorca-born multiple Moto GP champion Jorge Lorenzo.

You sit and analyse these things. Did I see and hear teen craziness - or witness genuine potential?

A couple of days later on the way to the airport, arriving at a roundabout I heard the unmistakeable sound of somebody wringing the neck of a little two-stroke somewhere behind me. I couldn't see it in my mirrors, so just stuck to the roundabout lane I was in.

Next thing it rode round the outside of me and flicked right exiting onto the same road as me.

I remember several things: first, rider and pillion - yep, pillion - were in vest and shorts, although wearing helmets. Second, a lightning pull on the clutch lever and gearchange. Third,  the rider, in a racing crouch, looking across at me as he overtook, the rear tyre hinting at reaching its grip limit. Their helmets looked too big for them, but probably only because they both looked to be not that tall.

As I passed them after only 100 yards or so, the bike seemingly maxed out at around 60kmh a thought crossed my mind. Are racers born, made - or is it something in modern day DNA that makes such talent - or risk-taking - innate?

I'll be watching out for an Alejandro from Majorca appearing on a Moto 3 grid in years to come.