Harrison Voight Profile
“Put his name in your little black book” is one over-done cliché and with so many talented riders coming through, it’s not such a little book any more… However, one name that has been in my metaphorical book for over half a decade is Harrison (Harry) Voight.
After a very successful career in dirt track, he commenced road racing back in 2017 in the GP Juniors Series. There was no denying his talent and competitiveness on the dirt and naturally he brought the same A game and mentality to the bitumen.
Harry may be virtually unknown in his homeland as he has spent the past few years competing overseas. In 2018 he spent a lot of the year in America with his good mate Tom Drane where the young pair starred on the hotly contested US dirt track scene. Then in 2019 Voight put more focus on the tarmar with a switch to the Moto3 bikes of the Asia Talent Cup and European Talent Cups.
For 2020 and 2021 Harry was selected for the Red Bull Rookies Cup as well as the CEV Moto3 Junior World Championship (now referred to as FIM JuniorGP).
In 2021, at the second round of the CEV in Valencia, he broke his collarbone in a qualifying session but managed to come back for the Rookies round at the Sachsenring soon after, where he scored his best result of the year.
However the following week was another round of the CEV Moto3 class at Portimao in Portugal, where it almost came to a full stop. Literally. He crashed and was run over, the impacts leaving with some fairly severe leg injuries and major surgeries.
It was a long painful road back to a full recovery, in fact Voight still has the rod in his leg from the Portimao incident. Through it all he kept his ride for 2022 with the Team Sic outfit run by Marco Simoncelli’s father, Paolo, which culminated with a Wild Card ride in the Moto3 GP at Misano, last year.
During all this time one thing was becoming extremely clear. Harry had grown to a point that he was just too tall and heavy for a Moto3 machine. His growth was becoming a major disadvantage against all the midget-sized European riders. As such, his eyes and aims are now focused on the CEV Moto2 Championship, the same category that fellow Aussie Senna Agius, finished second in last year.
In the past couple of years, Aussie race fans have been able to see Voight in action at the final round of ASBK at the Bend. Last year he was a part of the Miller Motorsports outift riding a Yamaha in the 600 Supersport class and he completely dominated the racing.
He will be a better fit for the larger, heavier and more powerful 765 cc-powered machines and because of this step up in class his time in Australia over the summer months has been focused on as much track time as possible and building bike fitness on Supersport machinery.
Harry also contested the St George Summer Series and also the official ASBK Test at SMP. He excelled at both and went within a knat’s whisker of bettering the long standing outright Supersport fastest lap set by Jamie Stauffer a long time ago.
Harry will complete his summer sojourn by taking part in the Australian Supersport Championship opener this weekend that will be run in conjunction with round one of the 2023 FIM Superbike World Championship.
This 16-year-old kid from the Gold Coast is a big talent with a sparklingly bright future ahead. He’s had his fair share of setbacks and like any rider with those championship winning aspirations, he uses those bumps in the road as inspiration. This year he should really start to come into his own…
Harrison Voight Interview
Mark Bracks: Well Harry your time in Australia; how do you rate it, you have been getting plenty of riding in…
Harrison Voight: “Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot. I’ve done a fair few miles lately. It’s been great trying to get as much seat time as I can before I head back to Europe. It’s really good for bike fitness, so it was great to be at Eastern Creek and then to get on track at Phillip Island a few times and of course to race there this weekend.”
Bracksy: So working on bike fitness, are you still – in a way – recovering from those now old injuries?
Voight: “Yes and no. Yes, it’s for bike fitness but the 600s and the Moto2 is much heavier to what I’ve been riding the last 18 months. A Moto3 weighs 80 kilos, Moto2 is heaps more and a 600 is a little bit similar in weight and power also. I’ve just been focusing on that. As for the injuries, they are pretty much good now.”
Bracksy: Being here and not having the pressure of racing in a championship, and just trying to work on yourself, how much do you keep in reserve or are you on the limit a lot.
Voight: “Obviously at the Sydney Ttest I pushing a fair bit. As you can see in the lap times. The track is quicker as well, so that makes it easier. The times I am at, it’s time to start pushing it a bit more so get up to speed and ramp up everything really. You’ve still got to have a go but you have to be conservative with what you are doing. It’s a risk versus reward scenario, so just take what’s on offer on the day.”
Bracksy: You haven’t crashed, have you?
Voight: “I haven’t crashed a 600 since last year at The Bend. I mean the year before (2021), so hopefully it stays that way!”
Bracksy: Do you get any grief from your team or words to be careful?
Voight: “Yes and no. Obviously, the team want me to get as fit as possible and try and get up to speed as it’s my first year in Moto2. Of course, the team is going to be like that, but you have to be smart with what you do now. If you’re growing in it, you understand the risks of the sport so you have to be a bit more aware of what’s going on. Yes, anything can happen but that’s just what we do. Yet you gotta be a bit more tippy toes on awareness of what’s going on around you.”
Bracksy: But if you weren’t doing this, you’d be on a dirt track or a motocross bike to keep your eye in.
Voight: “I don’t do motocross. I’m useless at it! You can get hurt pretty easy, but I’ve been riding flat track or some sort anyway.”
Bracksy: Are you ever going to go back to the flat track?
Voight: “I’ll still be doing it. Obviously not like I did in America that time with Tom Drane. I still have a big passion for it, and I like to do it a lot to distance myself from the road, as after a long year you kinda get a bit stale of doing laps, so it’s good to mix it up because it’s another different skill.”
Bracksy: Looking at the times you were doing in Sydney and how dominant you have been, how much is that been because of what you have been doing in Europe. Not so much the bike you have been riding but the competition you have been up against for corner speed and having to ride so hard all the time.
Voight: “It shows in the paddock and the field I’m in, especially here; I am like the baby I guess you could say. The fast one. Little Cameron Dunker is doing really good, which is great to see but the guys through the top five are a lot older than me. So of course that experience has come from Europe, yet I haven’t had much time to adapt to Europe as in ’21 I missed out half the year through injury.
“Basically, once I recovered, it was no fluffing around. Just straight into it, basically, with what I know. Obviously, I was sore. It doesn’t matter. I had to keep going. For sure, I’ve learnt a lot in Europe, and I will always continue to do so because every year the level is improving so everyone is getting quick. It’s a matter of a bit of everything.
“My style on the Moto3 kind of reminds me of Jack Miller a little bit, to be honest. I sent him a picture and I said I look like you and he said do whatever feels comfortable. In Europe that’s kinda the style. Everyone is different of course, but at this particular point, I’m able to bury the body weight forward to the bike sort of style.”
Bracksy: Is that what is really necessary in the Moto3 category over there; to get the weight right over the front?
Voight: “Pretty much. It’s a Grand Prix chassis so it really comes from the front. You’ve really got to make the bike work to turn. A production bike is a little different. Not saying production bikes are totally different. Everything has different aspects but they combine together I suppose.”
Bracksy: So with Phillip Island coming up, you won’t be happy unless you get pole position and three wins?
Voight: “I’ve already got my eyes on a target for lap times and stuff.”
Bracksy: You’re not going to tell me that are you? *Laughs*
Voight: “I’d rather just do my talking on track, coz if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. So, we’ll just see how it goes. Everyone knows Phillip Island; the weather can change in a moment. It all depends on the day really.”
Bracksy: Ok, looking forward after PI and going back to Europe for your first year on the Moto2 in the CEV, you guys are always setting goals for yourselves, what have you set yourself this year with the new team?
Voight: “Of course you have got your goals and what you want to achieve. Mine are very simple because I don’t want to over complicate it, yet, of course I want to set my eyes on the targets to be on the podium and win races because I truly believe I can do, because my skills are definitely improving much more. I believe in what I have done at home at the moment, and in the past 12 months, my style will suit the bigger bikes. I’m going to see how it goes at the start. Try not to get too carried away with it all and just try and learn. I have still got that hungriness and I want to win. Nothing’s changed.
“Of course I want to be on the podium. That’s what I want to do. That’s my target for the whole year. I just want to be up there and show that I have speed for my first year in Moto2. Obviously, I have to do another year in the juniors unless I win it. Which is going to be challenging. It’s never easy. If I didn’t believe I could do it I can’t see the point of being there.”
Bracksy: I know exactly what you’re saying but I know you can do it. You have an innate talent that I have witnessed for years, ever since dirt track and when you started in GP Juniors.
Voight: “It’s been good. There’s days where you get stale and miss home, I look back at the year I really struggled with injuries and I was really down. I just look back at those moments. I don’t know… it just rekindles that fire in me to keep pushing on as at the time it was really challenging, it probably would have been easy to give it all away, yet I am still here. I truly believe I can be up there with all the others.”
Bracksy: So how long before you reckon you’ll be in the GP category?
Voight: “You have to be 18 to get in. Dorna will allow dispensations if you are so many months out from your birthday and obviously if you win Moto2 GP Juniors, so it all depends on that. Next year I am 18 in May so hopefully I can – not that I wish anyone to get hurt – but if some opportunity arrives with a good team, hopefully I can have another go at the world championship and show my talent more and deserve to have a full-time seat.”
Bracksy: So what team are you riding for this year?
Voight: “The team is Yamaha Philippines/Stylo Bike Racing Team.”
Bracksy: Yamaha Philippines? Really?
Voight: “Yeah, just the sponsor is Philippines. That’s to fund their Filipino rider. The actual team is Stylo Bike Racing Team. Karl Paz has brought in Yamaha because he is sponsored by them which is just like the front cover for the team. It’s still a Triumph engine with Kalex chassis. Same As Senna.”
Bracksy: So does Senna have a target on his back?
Voight: “Yeah. He’s going to have a target on his back everywhere as he rode well last year and congrats to him as he deserves it. I’ve seen how hard he’s worked. Of course, you want to say congrats but you still want to beat him.”
Bracksy: Your body mass suits a Moto2 machine a lot more than a Moto3.
Voight: “Yeah. I don’t seem so tall and heavy in person yet in the Moto3 I am tall. If you look at Dennis Foggia, he is like a man-child. (A few laughs) He’s shorter than me, which is surprising as I am only 172 cm.”
Bracksy: What’s your body weight?
Voight: “Around about 61 [kg].”
Bracksy: Is that your optimum weight you want to hang to?
Voight: “In Moto2 I don’t really care but with what you do in this sport, diet is so crucial . I try to eat healthily, not eat any shit. When I eat well I tend to burn it all off.”
Bracksy: Is it a vegetarian diet?
Voight: “I have to eat meat. I can’t turn vegetarian. I wouldn’t be able to survive. I’m a bit fussy in that way.”
Bracksy: Where do you live now.
Voight: “I’ve moved closer to Barcelona. Closer to the team. I go up to Andorra about four or five times a year, if Jack is up there and Shane Stratton helps me out a lot and lives there. It’s a good place. I get up there to disconnect. It’s good to be up there.”
