Remy Gardner wins the 2021 FIM Moto2™ World Championship

An incredible season of consistency has seen the Australian Remy Gardner take the 2021 FIM Moto2™ World Championship. Gardner secured 12 podiums and five victories during the season, with the Championship coming down to the season's final race.

Heading into the final race weekend of the season at the Gran Premio Motul de la Comunitat Valenciana, Gardner only needed to finish 13^th or higher, and the title would be his. The Australian was able to keep his nerve after qualifying eighth and fighting throughout the race in the midfield for an eventual 10^th place finish.

Remy is the son of 1987 500cc Champion Wayne Gardner, who was in the paddock to congratulate his son with an emotional embrace.

Gardner's closest rival was teammate Raul Fernandez. The battle between the pair came down to just nine points as they began the weekend in Misano for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix. The race looked to be a major turning point in the title fight with Fernandez at the front and Gardner battling for points, quickly turned with Fernandez crashing out.

The Moto2™ World Championship then moved on to the Algarve GP, where the Australian was able to take an incredible win under pressure. This extended Gardner's lead to 23-points heading into the season finale.

If nerves weren't high enough, a red flag and restart meant Gardner had to go through the pressure again. Fernandez needed to win the race to be in with a chance of the title, and although he eventually won the final race, Gardner finished tenth and scored enough points to maintain the Championship.

He's done it! 🙌@GardnerRemy is the 2021 #Moto2 Champion 🇦🇺#ValenciaGP pic.twitter.com/wlNa0rSHfA

— Australian MotoGP™ (@ausmotogp) November 14, 2021

"It's definitely been an intense season. Raul did an amazing job this year. As a rookie, he really made me work for it for sure. It's such an amazing season, so many podiums, great races, four wins. [Speaker: five wins]. Five wins? Five," Gardner said after the race.

"With the first race I had a pretty good first lap, after that incident at Turn 2 I got though on the inside and ended up with the front guys and I thought that would be a good opportunity to go with those guys and break up the group and have a good consistent race, then with the Red Flag everything stopped.

"I made a good start in both, the second wasn't as good on the first lap and for the first few laps I was just hanging in there and going with the guys but it was a bit scary cause I saw there was a bit of commotion, guys were passing, Raul was going for it and I thought 'I'm not going to put myself in the middle there, I'm going to hang back.' Then I came under fire from the guys behind and had to pull my finger out a little bit and break up the group a bit.

"I had to push a bit harder to get away from Tetsu, he was going crazy and my teammate in the past, I know how he rides! Just tried to break up the group a bit and finish the race in a respectable position and safely. Managed to do that, keep my nerves and for sure it was a lot of pressure but I managed to bring it home.

"It hasn't really sunk in yet to be honest. There have been so many hard years, decent success this year and even last year, I really kind of changed my chip last year and everything started to go a bit better. I didn't have the most podiums in the world but managed to get my mind under control, everything was falling into place and I was trying to keep positive about everything. From 2015 to even 2019 they were really, really tough years for me and like I said, there were points in my career I honestly believed that was it, there was no more and that was the end of the road. Especially after injury for sure, fighting through that was incredibly difficult."

Gardner is the first Australian rider to clinch the Moto2™ title and the second to do so in the intermediate category of Grand Prix racing along with Kel Carruthers in 1969.

He joins the likes of Casey Stoner, Mick Doohan, Carruthers, Tom Phillis, Keith Campbell and Wayne Gardner in claiming a Grand Prix world title.

His six wins in the intermediate category make him the second most successful Australian rider in the intermediate class, behind Carruthers, who had seven.

A lovely embrace between father and son ❤️@TheWayneGardner congratulates @GardnerRemy 🙌

#RemyRules 🏄‍♂️| #ValenciaGP 🏁 pic.twitter.com/zbbabPLwPQ

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) November 14, 2021

Stats

First Grand Prix: Misano 2014, Moto3™

First pole position: Assen 2019, Moto2™

First podium: Argentina 2019, Moto2™

First victory: Portugal 2020, Moto2™

Grands Prix: 113 (92 in Moto2™)

Victories: 5 (5 in Moto2™)

Podiums: 16 (16 in Moto2™)

Pole positions: 6 (6 in Moto2™)

Fastest laps: 5 (5 in Moto2™)

World Championships: Moto2™ (2021)

World Championship career

2014: Moto3™ World Championship – 32nd, Kalex/Kalex KTM, 3 races, 1 point

2015: Moto3™ World Championship – 30th, Mahindra, 18 races, 6 points

2016: Moto2™ World Championship – 26th, Kalex, 12 races, 8 points

2017: Moto2™ World Championship – 21st, Tech3, 17 races, 23 points

2018: Moto2™ World Championship – 19th, Tech3, 15 races, 40 points

2019: Moto2™ World Championship – 15th, Kalex, 18 races, 77 points

2020: Moto2™ World Championship – 6th, Kalex, 13 races, 135 points

2021: Moto2™ World Championship – 1st, Kalex, 18 races, 311 points