There’s not much Mick Doohan hasn’t achieved in motorsport.
The five-time 500cc world champion – consecutively from 1994-98 – won 54 premier-class Grands Prix in a career that made him a household name from the Gold Coast to Mugello and everywhere in between, a name that remains in the mainstream sporting sphere by virtue of being the father of F1 driver Jack, currently in his first season as a test and reserve driver for Haas after racing for Alpine in 2025.
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But for all that focus on the past and present, the 60-year-old has an eye on Australia’s two-wheel future, too.
It’s why he’s putting his weight behind a push to get a young Aussie back on the international pathway to MotoGP, after his first tilt on the world championship stage came to an untimely end last year.
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Wollongong 21-year-old Jacob Roulstone spent the 2024 and 2025 seasons in the world championship’s entry-level Moto3 category, a cut-throat class of teenagers scrambling for results and attention under the careful scrutiny of MotoGP’s heavy-hitters.
It’s a tough enough gig for a native European; coming from Australia, it’s degrees of times more difficult.
Which is why Doohan wants to help.
Doohan and Roulstone will take to the stage at the ‘Master and The Apprentice’ fundraising event in Sydney this weekend to help Roulstone’s European Moto2 championship campaign, which begins in late May in Catalunya, Spain.
The seven-round series features five tracks on the MotoGP world championship calendar, and can be a springboard to an entry or re-entry to the world championship, as compatriot and multiple Moto2 race-winner Senna Agius can attest.
As Doohan sees it, it’s the least he can do to keep a storyline going that has links to before his own time on the world stage.
“Jacob’s doing a bit on Superbikes here in Australia and going well, and the young guy is very talented – he just needs the support and a little bit of a break to get through,” Doohan told Fox Sports’ Renita Vermeulen on the ‘Pit Talk’ podcast.
PIT TALK PODCAST: Renita is joined by Australia’s five-time 500cc world champion Mick Doohan to talk about the state of Australian motorcycle racing ahead of Jack Miller’s 200th premier-class start in Brazil, and explains why he’s helping support young Aussie Jacob Roulstone on his quest to return to the world championship grid. Listen to Pit Talk below.
“With Jacob … we’ve known each other for a little while and he’s clearly a talented young guy. In his early years in Europe, I helped him out a little bit. If I can support him to get back there a little bit quicker than he’s planned to, then that’s all the better for him, plus it inspires the next group of young guys coming through behind him.”
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Doohan has sympathy for the way Australian riders now need to make it to MotoGP.
His own path seems a world away from the way riders like Jack Miller – set to start his landmark 200th premier-class race in Brazil this weekend, a record for an Australian rider – along with Agius and Moto3 rider Joel Kelso have had to make their way to the epicentre of the sport in Europe, and be good enough and financially secure enough to be able to stay.
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“It’s completely different now than what it was many years ago … I don’t know if it’s more difficult, but the opportunities are difficult,” Doohan said.
“For one, it’s a lot more expensive. The manufacturers don’t pick you up at such an early age, as they did back in the 80s when I was [Roulstone’s] age. I was racing in Japan, and then the Japanese manufacturers would pick you up and take you to Europe. I was expedited really quickly through, as were a few other Aussies. The whole platform has changed, and now it’s really about the whole family moving to Europe.
“Casey Stoner was really the first of that next generation to make it through that next step … the whole family packed up and went to the UK. I’d asked [former world champion] Barry Sheene who the next guy was, as I was helping out with the sport for Dorna, and they were looking for the next great [Australian] hope coming through. There’d been Wayne Gardner, Kevin Magee, Daryl Beattie, myself and so on … they needed the next young guy to keep it going, keep the Australian riders in there.
“Casey then went into Spain and then into the junior championship like Jacob is doing, so it is possible … it’s just a lot more work, a lot more stepping stones to get through, and the budgets are massive. Quite often, it’s got more to do with the funding available than pure talent. It’s very rare in this day and age, in either four wheels or two, to get through on pure talent … it’s possible, but it’s very rare.
“It’s a big commitment for a family. Forget about the airfares, the accommodation and everything else … on the competition side of it you’ve got tyres, a team you’ve got to support, crash damage … you’re talking anywhere from, in Australian dollars, your starting point is $400,000 through the multi-millions if you want to get through to MotoGP.
“Back in days gone by, it was all supported by the factories, but now it’s such a business. The Spanish and the Italians, they outweigh the Aussies 50-1, and they generally come with a backpack full of money.”
Doohan is hopeful for the longer-term prospects of 20-year-old Agius, already a two-time Moto2 race-winner – “he seems to be going from strength to strength … it would be great to see him be picked up or on somebody’s shortlist for MotoGP and I think he’d probably go better on something like that [than Moto2] – and feels Kelso, 22, is “fast and he’s always in there, and it would be interesting if he can step up to Moto2 and then see what happens.”
Miller’s milestone in Goiania this weekend, Doohan feels, is testament to his experience and value as a developmental asset as well as his riding, but equally highlights why Roulstone – and the fledgling prospects coming in behind him – are so important.
“Jack clearly understands how to develop a bike … Yamaha now have him developing what is a new format for them with the V4 engine,” Doohan said.
“He’s quick on a lap and he understands what goes on with a bike and can give good feedback, so that’s what has kept him around.
“Jack’s not a young man in MotoGP terms – he’s still a young man – and it’s good to have an Aussie there, but it’s also why we need someone like a Jacob Roulstone to come through.
“We need to have a continued flow of riders coming through from Australia, one to keep the [Australian Grand Prix] here, and two because it keeps Australian riders on the track.
“If I can help [with that], then it’s easy for me.”
Featuring Mick Doohan, the ‘Master and The Apprentice’ gala event to assist Jacob Roulstone’s MotoGP campaign will be held in Sydney on Saturday, March 21 – more information can be found here.