American Jake Gagne, age 24, is being considered as a possible replacement for the late Nicky Hayden on the Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team.
“It is being considered,” Gagne confirmed to Roadracingworld.com Sunday at Road America. “I don’t know anything yet, but we’ve talked to those guys and I know I’m on the list.
“Obviously, it’s a tragic situation. I would like to think if we had Nicky here today and he had to choose somebody [to ride his bike] he would chose an American. If I get the opportunity I’m going to make the most of it and give it everything I’ve got and try to do Nicky proud and do America proud.”
Gagne has been a Red Bull athlete since he joined the Red Bull AMA Rookies Cup in 2008, his first year of road racing after a successful amateur motocross career. The following year, Gagne advanced to the European-based Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup, and in 2009 Gagne won the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup Championship.
Unfortunately, that did not lead to any terrific opportunities in the FIM World Championship, although Gagne did some racing in the CEV Moto2 Championship and got to do wild card rides at two Moto2 World Championship events in 2011.
In 2012, Gagne returned to the United States to race in the AMA Pro Daytona Sportbike Championship for the Red Bull/Roadrace Factory team, which he has been with ever since. The following season, Gagne was the AMA Pro Daytona Sportbike runner-up (to Champion Cameron Beaubier), and in 2014, Gagne won the AMA Pro Daytona Sportbike Championship.
Then in 2015, Gagne traded his Yamaha YZF-R6 in for a YZF-R1 and dominated the new MotoAmerica Superstock 1000 Championship.
In 2016, Gagne’s team moved up to the MotoAmerica Superbike class, but his team was unable to give him a consistently competitive motorcycle and Gagne was only able to score 10th in the final point standings.
This season, Gagne’s team has switched to Honda machinery, but the team has only made limited progress developing its CBR1000RR SP2 Superbike, one of only a handful of the bikes being raced in the world, including the Red Bull Honda World Superbike team. In fact, Gagne has raced with a stock engine and a stock Engine Control Unit (ECU) for most of the 2017 season, so far.
If Gagne is chosen to replace Nicky Hayden, he will be asked to pull double duty, racing in both the MotoAmerica Superbike series and the Superbike World Championship, because there is only one conflicting weekend between the two schedules.
And Gagne has already received the blessing of Danny Walker, the owner of his current Broaster Genuine Chicken Honda team, to do so.
“If this happens, we would be all about it!” Walker told Roadracingworld.com.
Asked when he expected to hear more news about the Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team’s plans, Gagne said, “I don’t know. I think Misano, the next one, isn’t this weekend but the next one [June 16-18]. So we would have to make some decisions real soon to make that one happen. If not, Laguna Seca is the next round [July 7-9]. So if we could make it happen that would be awesome.
“We don’t know yet, but it’s good to know I’m being considered.”