After a broken neck and a brutal recovery, Jacob is back chasing Moto3 glory – and rediscovering his love for racing
Less than a year ago, Jacob Roulstone’s dreams of racing glory seemed to be in tatters as he lay in bed with a fractured and displaced C3 vertebra – a broken neck. The surgery installed plates and screws to stabilise the area. Luckily Roulstone didn’t suffer any notable nerve damage.
It took five days before he could walk. He spent six weeks in a cervical collar and was forced to miss pre-season testing, plus the first two rounds of the 2025 championship. Roulstone describes the crash, which was at a ride day on a street bike, as just a minor get-off.
“I just lost the front, and just the crash itself, it’s fine for the body, (but) where I just rolled a neck on my head, so… Yeah, it was a stressful time, for sure.
“Mum and Dad were in Australia; I was there with my mate. It was training, you see. It was a tricky time, but I had the best people around me, and at all times I had my mate Chubby and his family looking after me. I had a lot of help from Red Bull (his Moto3 team) through the APC, the Performance Centre.
“I went straight there as soon as I could do active recovery. And my surgeon as well, from the HML Cross Hospital in Barcelona, she was amazing, and it was really… they made the difficult time not so much. Not saying pleasurable but stress-free a little bit. It was really, really nice. So yeah, it was tricky, but the team and everyone was really supportive. It was a time to be a human, not a rider, which was nice. I’m really thankful for that.”
Prior to the crash, Roulstone was looking like being one of the hotshots of the ultra-competitive Moto3 class in 2025, although COVID-19 almost derailed the plans. Coming off winning the NSW Junior Championship in 2018 and strong results in the Oceania Junior Cup and the Idemitsu Asia Talent Cup, Roulstone and his mum Leah moved to Europe… and got stuck in lockdowns. “It was 105 days in lockdown in a hotel room with Mum, which is difficult!”
In a small Spanish apartment, Roulstone studied – he was still at school, studying at home just like so many kids in Australia – but he also had access to an underground carpark where he would ride his bicycle. “That saved my sanity, I think,” he jokes. “The hardest was coming here in 2021, because we came over in 2020 knowing that, okay, the family can come over soon – but 2021, knowing that we’re probably not going to see the family the whole year, that was difficult.”
He had earned his ride with Red Bull GasGas Tech3 (now rebranded KTM) through consistent performances rather than title-winning results, and kept his ride with 15th overall in 2024.
At the time of writing, he’s 18th in the 2025 standings, which isn’t where he’d like to be. But losing two races to the pre-season crash and one to a breakdown (when he was in the leading group and looking good for a possible top five) hasn’t helped. Mostly he’s been at the back of the leading pack, picking up points in races he’s finished and nabbing a couple of top-10 results along the way; not where he wanted to be, but in the crazy racing we call Moto3, still something to be proud of.
So, what would success look like for Roulstone in 2025? “That would be top five in the championship. Of course, I still want to go for winning it but, you know, I’ve missed a few rounds and I’m not where I want to be, but anything is possible in motorsport.
“I just want to do the best I can, track-by-track, and focus day-by-day on that so I can have a good set-up for next year.
“It’s crazy to say that I’m already thinking about next year but, you know, that’s the plan. I’ve got so many people around me to help find a plan for next year and the future, but I just have to think about racing just to stay in the top part of the championship.”
In a season where the top 15 can be separated by less than 10 seconds after more than half-an-hour of intense, elbow-to-elbow racing, to score points is an achievement. To do it regularly after watching the opening races of the season while recovering from a serious injury is a credit to this softly-spoken young man.
While 2025 hasn’t been quite what he’d hoped for, the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island in October is something to look forward to. Last year he qualified 13th and finished 13th in the race, two places behind Joel Kelso.
“The highlight of last year was racing at home,” he says. “I’d never been, so I didn’t know what to expect at all, so it was a really, really special moment. And as well, I want to say a highlight of the year would be doing the Mick Doohan helmet (Roulstone wore a replica of Doohan’s famous helmet in the race). He’s my idol, and when he was in the box, when we were seeing him before the photos and everything, it was really special.”
If Roulstone wasn’t racing motorbikes, he says his aspirations would have been even more stratospheric: “To be honest, I’d want to be in a fighter jet! I’m obsessed with it, like a little kid. I really, really like them.
“For sure, though, if I wasn’t racing, I’d still do something with bikes; engineering, or something like that. Anything that has to do with motors would be cool.”
So why bikes, then? Is it the speed? The competition? The will to win? “For me, it’s the freedom. At the race weekends it’s a bit different, it’s my job – but, you know, when you hop on the bike, you feel free. I do have the will to win. I do have the passion. I love even watching on TV; I love to sit and watch MotoGP with the team, like a spectator.
“But I think it’s literally just the freedom, you know? I can go and ride trials with my mates in the forest and it’s… I love it! Even if sometimes things get you down, I just go ride motocross or something like that. I think I just love bikes as much as I did as a little kid.”
