The rider who can seal Spain's MotoGP title sweep in 2025

The Indonesian Grand Prix could rank as the strangest race of 2025 – certainly one of the most unpredictable – as MotoGP toasted a 15th Spanish premier-class winner. It was also both a formality and a disaster for two other Spaniards.

José Antonio Rueda sealed his Moto3 world championship (the seventh Iberian in the last 10 years to lift the crown) with four rounds remaining, while Manuel González’s disqualification from the runner-up spot in Moto2 — due to non-homologated software — has thrown a wrench into his season-long title bid.

Moto2, powered by Triumph’s growling 765cc engines, is the final category to be decided in 2025 after Rueda’s ninth win secured KTM‘s day in the Moto3 sun. The championship has been gloriously chaotic, with 10 different winners from 18 rounds and six riders reaching the podium for the first time. Competitors’ form has swung wildly: American Joe Roberts triumphed in Czechia but hasn’t cracked the top five since; perennial threat Aron Canet claimed five trophies in the first 10 rounds and just one (fortuitously) from the last eight. Pirelli rubber, the quirks of the Kalex, Forward, and Boscoscuro chassis, and the varied age, ability, and experience of the riders have all been factors.

Through the turbulence, 23-year-old González has been one of the few constants. He has already uncorked nine Prosecco bottles, four from the top step. By all accounts, the Madrid native has reached this level through razor-edged focus. Ambition and concentration are mandatory at world championship level and are ingrained in most riders’ psychological make-up – honed across hundreds of youth races as they claw their way upward.

González carries himself differently, though. He’s reserved, unshowy, private, almost unsocial. 2025 is his fourth full grand prix season, having taken an unorthodox route into Moto2 via World Supersport rather than Moto3. He needed one season to reach the top five, two for a podium, and was winning by his third in 2024. IntactGP is his third team in four years, and the German outfit’s experience – plus his own maturation – has formed a winning combination.

With his square jawline, flawless complexion, and athletic build, “Manu” could easily play a movie henchman. But across a table in the dark, industrial décor of the IntactGP hospitality suite, his manner is lighter and engaging. He laughs frequently. González has led the Moto2 standings since round five in April. “It is something that every rider wants to do; the objective of everyone, no?” he says. “And once you arrive there, your objective changes – it becomes to stay there! The mentality for me stays the same whether I’m first, third, 10th or 20th: always to go out on track and do the best you can with the bike you have.”

González claims to thrive on an athlete’s endless quest for improvement. “It’s a pressure I really like…and I try to manage well.” Ominously for Brazilian rival Diogo Moreira, who is now just nine points adrift with a maximum of 100 left in 2025, and the rest of the Moto2 field, González is likely to be fired up in Australia and in the wake of the Mandalika setback that robbed 20 points from his margin in the standings. “I think I’m an athlete that comes back better after difficult moments,” he ponders. “Every time I had [difficult moments] the next day, the next week, the next race was even better. The performance was higher. Even the next year, I was stronger than the last one. I really like to push myself a lot, in many things.”

González radiates intensity. “Motor sport, physically, can seem a bit easy from the outside, but the reality is not like this,” he offers. “You have to be at an almost perfect level to push at 100%. I always try whatever I need to adapt to the bike, and what I need with my body to be comfortable. If I am struggling somehow, then I train to improve it. To be good in every aspect.”

Isn’t this approach draining. “For sure, it’s tiring because our job is every day, not just on the bike here at the track,” he answers. “You have to be ‘good’ every day. Mentally, physically, every aspect you need to be better because you never arrive to the perfect moment. You want more. There might be a moment where you think ‘I’m tired, I need to breathe a bit’ but you also know that in this sport, when you breathe, another one [rival] passes you. It’s not easy. When you want something, to win, to win the championship, to be better, then there is always some sort of moment that pushes you.”

Naturally, part of the procedure involves analysis. “When I was young, I was already looking to learn things from other riders. I liked [Valentino] Rossi the most, but I was looking at a lot of others to see their strengths and how I could be like that. I do the same now, but mainly to other sports. You can learn from many people what they do well.”

An example? “Well, erm…looking inside MotoGP you can learn a lot from Valentino and how every day at the race he still wanted to ride the bike to the maximum and look for ways to enjoy it at 40 years old. He’s still racing now, so it’s in his veins. In tennis, with [Carlos] Alcaraz, you can see that he puts ‘everything on the table’. He doesn’t hide. Here, it’s the same.” Something specific that he’s improved? “Aggression needed on the bike,” he puts up. “When I was in Supersport many experienced riders were fighting with me and they were much better in this area.”

Despite a degree of bluster, González conveys a stoicism. It’s an attitude that undoubtedly helped him in Indonesia, also in Austria when he had another technical DNF. “We rely on many things, not just on us, which might be happening in other sports; in tennis, it is just you and your racket! Here you have a team behind, a machine and other things that you cannot control…but you can control yourself.”

González didn’t have overbearing parents. No ‘motocross dad’. Therefore, his mentality has been fashioned somehow and from somewhere. At this point González’s introspection fails him. “I don’t know what to say! I’m like this because I grew up pushing myself…I’m always concentrating on what I want or need. Not just on the bike but also outside. I am always trying to separate what is important to me and what is not. I didn’t learn this from something. What you can control, you need to improve. Yes, that can be applied to anything…but if you leave a space in competition, then someone else will take it.”

2025 could still be momentous for González, but there has been disappointment, aside from the Indonesia mishap. His speed generated plenty of hype in the first half of the season and he was widely touted for a MotoGP saddle for 2026. He then had a very promising ‘audition’ when he stood in for the injured Ai Ogura (his 2024 Moto2 adversary) at the one-day test after the Aragon Grand Prix.

The Trackhouse Racing crew were complimentary of González’s level-headedness and approach and he distinguished himself with the Aprilia RS GP. The two principal doors into MotoGP 2026 – Prima Pramac Yamaha and LCR Honda – eventually closed shut with a loud squeak. Yamaha opted for another type of rookie in the form of WorldSBK icon, soon-to-be 29-year-old Toprak Razgatlıoglu and retained Jack Miller for the Australian’s strong experience to develop the company’s V4. Rather gallingly for González, Honda opted for his closest pursuer in the current championship, rookie Diogo Moreira.

Moreira’s talent at 21 years of age is beyond dispute but there is another school of thought indicating that González lost his MotoGP chance due to his nationality. If he had entered the grid for 2026 he would be the ninth Spaniard from 22. Moreira, in contrast, ticks boxes for an important market for the series although the fact that the Brazilian could still defeat González is the main contributor. It will be a tense finale.

Asking González, who is the third Spaniard to wear IntactGP’s colours when the team had previously tried to field and develop Germans or central Europeans, how he can relieve the pressure or seek escape in other ways, he struggles to answer. He spends his time between Madrid and Valencia, training during the winter in the latter city. “I like cars a lot, F1 and car racing…” he offers when prompted. There is little on his Instagram beyond racing, cars and shots of long-term girlfriend Paula.

Realising that his pitcrew are likely to laud his technicality and aptitude, IntactGP’s press officer and team co-ordinator Karina Homilius, a 20-year veteran of the paddock and thirteen of those with IntactGP, was an alternative target to learn more about González’s character.

“He’s not nervous at all,” she describes. “You see him in the box and that’s what he’s like outside as well: a very normal boy. He doesn’t need to show off, so to work with him is very easy and he’s willing to do things. He doesn’t show his emotions too much, even his parents say that!