Jorge Prado: a global future
Many have defined him as the future of world motocross. And this is not by chance, since the just eighteen-year-old Jorge Prado Garcia has already won two world MX2 titles and is preparing to compete in the Queen class.
The Spanish rider, born in Lugo in Galicia on 5th January 2001, rode his first motorcycle at the tender age of three, and has not stopped since, claiming an impressive sequence of victories that will lead him to make his début in MXGP in 2020 on a KTM 450. Jorge Prado took part in his first competitions at the age of six, winning Master Kids aged 8, and the Spanish national championship in 65cc one year later. In 2011 he triumphed at Mundialito in Cingoli in Italy. He had just turned 10 and in the same season he also became the European and the world 65cc motocross champion, becoming the youngest world champion ever and the second world champion in Spain.
KTM showed an interest in him and at 11 years old he moved with his whole family from sunny Spain to Belgium, to Lommel, the University of motocross. In 2012, Jorge Prado on his 85 cc raced in the Spanish, European and world championships with the KTM Red Bull team. One year later he won the Red Bull Give Me Five, and in 2015, aged just 14, he won the European 125 cc championship. The following year he made his début in the MX2 category, in the Belgian Grand Prix, climbing onto the podium in Assen for the first time. In 2017, when he was only 16 years old, he managed to win three GP (Trentino, Belgium and the Netherlands), closing the final ranking in seventh place.
Since 2018, Jorge Prado has been a permanent member in his own right of the De Carli Racing Team and has had the opportunity to work and learn from Italian champion Tony Cairoli. He moved to Rome, where he uses the official bikes and can rely on dedicated expert mechanics and train on a private track in Malagrotta, just outside the Italian capital. Inevitably, in the same year, he won the MX2 world title. From as early as the fourth race in Arco di Trento, Prado started to win and simply did not stop: he stopped off in Portugal, Germany, France, in Ottobiano, Indonesia and the Czech Republic, where he brought the De Carli Team back to the top of the podium after 10 years.
In 2019, the young Spanish driver dominated in MX2 with 12 pole positions, 17 Grand Prix and 34 rounds won. He declared: “My goal this season is to continue to improve". And he has done just that. Prado won the world title in Uddevalla, two races ahead of the end of the championship. On the Swedish track, first place in race 1 and fourth in race 2 were enough, and with the third absolute place in the Grand Prix, he mathematically won the championship. He has renewed his contract with KTM for another four years and his excellent début at the Motocross of Nations in Assen at the end of September on the 450 bodes well for an unmissable 2020 season.
