Toprak Razgatlioglu and Jorge Martin could not be missing in the now traditional FIM Awards, which were held in Palma Di Mallorca to honor the World Champions of each motorcycle discipline (HERE are the photos of the evening).
Indeed, 2024 was the year of revenge for both riders, with the Turk managing to repeat his victory with Yamaha in 2021, taking BMW to its first World SBK title, and his debut with the German manufacturer.
While the Spaniard accomplished the feat he came close to in 2023, graduating MotoGP Champion with the Pramac Racing team, after getting the better of Francesco Bagnaia and the official Ducati team.
Two diametrically opposite seasons were experienced by the two world champion riders, but they have in common much more than the #1 obtained at the end of the year.
Both Martin and Razgatlioglu in fact can boast a past in the Red Bull Rookies Cup, the KTM one-make series established in 2007, which has launched many world championship riders.
Forming, in less than two decades, as many as 11 riders capable of succeeding in at least one of the three classes of MotoGP and winning a total of 15 titles overall.
Not only did the Turk and the Spaniard both pass through the championship created with the purpose of discovering and training young motorcycle racing talents, but they also met and went up against each other there between 2013 and 2014.
A two-year period in which Toprak finished 10th and 6th, getting two third places in Austin in his debut season and a win and a third place at Sachsenring the following year.
While Martin had showcased his full potential, winning the 2014 title with one race to spare, thanks to a haul of six wins, and four more podiums, achieved in what was his third year in the nursery series.
It was an important step in the career of the Madrid native, who this year became the first MotoGP World Champion to also win the title in the Rookies Cup.
Since Joan Mir, the only other MotoGP world champion to have transited from the one-make series, has never written his name in the championship's roll of honor.
It was Martinator himself who explained the importance the Rookies Cup had in the path that took him to the top of the World Championship.
"Without the Red Bull Rookies Cup, I wouldn't be here," he admitted shortly after winning the title in Barcelona, "We were a normal family, we weren't poor but we didn't have a lot of money.
When I first went to the trials, I was very young and they told me to come back a year later and when I did I was the fastest. Maybe without that advice I would have quit racing. Three years later I won the Rookies Cup and it was a big moment."
With victory in the one-make series, the doors to Moto3 opened for the now 26-year-old, where he became champion in 2018 with 260 points and seven wins.
While Razgatlioglu, under the guidance of his mentor and compatriot Kenan Sofuoglu, preferred to continue his career among the production-based series with Puccetti Racing.
A team with which he became European Superstock 600 champion in 2015, and then arrived in World Superbike in 2018, after two seasons in the European Superstock 1000 championship.
Choices that took the two rainbow winners in completely different directions, who a decade later found themselves in Palma de Mallorca.
And who in a few years could even cross paths again on the track, should Toprak succeed in crowning his desire to return to the MotoGP paddock as a MotoGP rider.
