Alex Hofmann

He successfully raced in Motocross in his early teens, before entering the German 125cc championship for the first time in 1995, and the European series alongside it a year later. In 1997 he was runner-up in the German series, and also started the German 125cc World Championship race as a wild card.

In 1998 he moved up to 250cc, winning every race in the German championship and also winning the European title, as well as coming 10th in a one-off in the 250cc World Championship. He was the first German to achieve both titles in his first season in the 250 cc class. Inspired by his childhood idol Loris Capirossi, he started with starting number 66. From 1999 to 2001 Hofmann was a regular in this series, although without taking a podium finish, and missing 8 races in 2000 due to injury.

He started 2002 without a ride, but made his MotoGP debut as a stand-in rider for Garry McCoy at the WCM Red Bull team, also filling in for Loris Capirossi for Sito Pons' team. He was hired to be Kawasaki's test rider role in 2003. In two starts, he scored points both times. He and Shinya Nakano replaced McCoy and Andrew Pitt as full-time racers in 2004. The next two years were difficult, mainly due to injuries,^[1] partly through his love of Motocross. Points were rare and Kawasaki chose Randy de Puniet for 2006 over Hofmann.

In 2006 he joined the D'Antin Pramac team, riding on a 2006 customer version of the works Ducati alongside José Luis Cardoso. When their factory rider Sete Gibernau was injured at the Circuit de Catalunya (a race in which Alex finished 8th, helped by 3 riders not starting the resumption of the race), Hofmann was appointed as his replacement for the next 2 races, before returning to D'Antin for his home race at Sachsenring,^[2] dropping out early.

In 2007 he remained with D'Antin, alongside the veteran Alex Barros. Fifth place at Le Mans took him to 10th in the championship after five rounds, ahead of reigning champion Nicky Hayden. He was a strong 8th at Assen. Preparation for his home round at the Sachsenring were hampered by a hand injury suffered when a friend closed a car door onto it, but he scored minor points in the race. He injured his hand in practice at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.^[3] He was replaced at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca by Chaz Davies and by Iván Silva at Brno. He returned to racing at Misano but he was fired by the team following the Portuguese Grand Prix, after pulling out of the race while in with a chance of scoring points, due to a lack of motivation.^[4]

His girlfriend is called Romina Rados. He loves action sports such as skiing and BMX bikes. At 1.80m he is tall for a motorcycle racer. His favourite food is Italian. He has a two children, a son called Travis (b. 2010) and a daughter called Sienna (b. 2014).

He is fluent in German, English, French, Spanish and Italian.

After his racing career he started working as MotoGP co-commentator alongside German commentator Edgar Mielke for the German TV station Sport1 in 2009, where his knowledge from his own racing career and multilingualism prove helpful as a pit and grid reporter. He remained there until the end of 2014 when Eurosport acquired the rights for the MotoGP for the 2015 season. Alex Hofmann also switched to Eurosport and also worked there as a pit lane reporter. In the spring of the following year, he left the channel, citing technical and personnel setbacks in his reporting.

WHen there was no place available for Hofmann on a MotoGP bike in the 2008 season, Aprilia hired him as a development and test rider for the new RSV4 superbike. If his performance was sufficient, it was planned that he would start as an Aprilia factory rider in the Superbike World Championship from 2009. However, this hope was dashed when Shinya Nakano, who had switched from the MotoGP class to the Superbike World Championship, received a contract with Aprilia and started for the Italians alongside Max Biaggi in 2009. The German remained a test rider for the manufacturer from Noale. After his contract expired, he moved to KTM in 2015 to help prepare the company's entry into MotoGP in 2017 as a test rider.

Since 2016, Hofmann has worked for the Austrian TV station ServusTV as a racing expert and co-commentates alongside Austrian commentator Christian Brugger at the Motorcycle World Championship races. The Broadcast were available to the German audience again so the Team at ServusTV became a mixture of Austrian and German personnel. Due to his foreign language skills, he is often deployed in the starting grid and interviews the riders immediately before the start. Stefan Bradl serves as Hofmann's additional co-commentator and stand-in. Occasionally fellow GP ex-riders Thomas Lüthi and Sandro Cortese also appear on segments, sometimes due to their involvement in the paddock or replacement expert when Bradl did race and test for HRC and KTM. After the Covid Pandemic ServusTV announced withdrawal to broadcast their frequencies to Germany, focusing solely on the Austrian market. Ultimately a subsidiary station was formed as DF1 that inherited the rights was formed just in time before the subsequent season with the whole cast and crew retained.

Hofmann has also occasionally been called in for Florian König during Formula 1 broadcasts on the German TV channel RTL. Furthermore Alex joined RTL2, RTL Nitro and Sport1 for the 24h Nürburgring Endurance Events in recent years, after his active rider career ended in the late 2010s. His knowledge and linguistical versatility helped him to establish a strong recurring role in motorsport coverage.