Marco Simoncelli – 1987- 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Simoncelli
23rd October 2011
Marco Simoncelli was born on January 20th 1987, in Cattolica, Italy. He began his motorcycle racing career on mini-motos, bike racing's equivalent to karting. In 1996, at just 11 years of age, he came second in the Italian Mini-Moto championships. He went on to win the title in 1999 and again in 2000, when he also competed in the European Minimoto series, finishing second in that championship..
In 2001, Marco won the Italian 125cc Championship in his first season and followed that feat in 2002 by winning the European 125cc Championship.
Having caught the attention of Massimo Matteoni's team, Marco campaigned his first full season in the 2003 FIM 125cc World Championship, alongside Mirko Giansanti on the Matteoni Team's Aprillia 125. Over the years Matteoni Racing has accelerated the careers of many well known riders on the 125 and 250cc Grand Prix circuit, including Emilio Alzamora, Marco Melandri, Alex de Angelis, Jaroslav Hules, Chaz Davies, Alex Baldolini, and Raffaele de Rosa.
In 2004, Marco raced alonside Steve Jenkner for Rauch Bravo. Round two of the 125cc championship that year was an exceptionally wet race at Jerez. In a sign of things to come, this was the scene of Marco's debut win in the class. With two pole positions and 79 world championship points, he finished the season in eleventh place out of thirty three in the championship. For 2005, Marco again moved teams, to join Nocable.it Race team. With a back to back win at Jerez (round 15) and 177 points he finished up fifth in the championship.
Already outgrowing the 125cc Aprilia's, quite literally, for 2006, Marco progressed to the 250cc class with Gilera. His highest place finish that season was a sixth at the Chinese Grand Prix but he secured 10th place in the championship with 92 points. He was up against a veritable list of motorcycle racing's 250cc Grands Prix 'Who's Who' including, among others.: Alvaro Bautista, Thomas Luthi, Joan Olive, Gabor Talmacsi, Pablo Nieto, Sergio Gadea, Raffaele de Rosa, Mika Kallio, Imre Toth, Angel Rodriguez, Hector Faubel, Julian Simon, Lukas Pesek, Manuel Poggiali, Mike Di Meglio and Tomoyoshi Koyama.
The two-fifty class has always been the hotbed of motorcycle racing talent and whilst many may think that coming tenth in that season would not be much of an achievement it should be remembered that in 2007 he was again competing against some of the very best seasoned campaigners. Jorge Lorenzo took the title that year and we all know how good he is. The season was littered with DNF's and, controversially, Marco was at the centre of some of the incidents. Nevertheless, his talent was being honed into that of fearless and fearsome opponent.
Still with Gilera for 2008, after starting the season with another two DNF's, he broke his duck and won his first 250cc race at round six at Mugello – somewhat controversially again after a clash with Hector Barbera. He went on to wrap up the title with a further five wins (at Catalunya, Sachsenring, Motegi, Phillip Island and Valencia), six podium places and 281 world championship points.
2009 was a real hit and miss year for Marco. Hiroshi Aoyama won the 250cc title with four victories and only two podiums but he had more higher points finishes. Hector Barbera, the runner up, with three victories and five podiums, also scored higher than Marco. With six victories and four podiums his season was again marred by controversy, low points finishes and several retirements. To cap a somewhat unusual season, as a one-off, Marco competed in the Imola round of the WSB. Riding for Aprilia he crashed out of fifth place in race one, but gobsmacked the WSB by taking the third step of the podium in race two.
In 2010 Marco was elevated to MotoGP with the Gressini Honda team. He secured eighth place in the championship with only two non-finishes in the season. Round 17 at Estoril saw his best finish that year, a hard fought and creditable fourth place. Marco was riding the socks off of the satellite team's Honda and taking it to places it had rarely seen.
This year, 2011, again he was “out-riding” the bike, courting controversy along the way, having collided with Dani Pedrosa in the French GP, he was nevertheless getting it to the podium. This weekend promised so much as did Marco's talent, courage and audacious style.
The motorcycle racing fraternity is in a state of shock as are the fans of the sport. We have had a number of tragedies this year across the various disciplines but somehow this one has cut deeply into the flesh of motorcycle sport. Not since Daijiro Kato at Suzuka 2003 has the senior class of Grand Prix bike racing lost a rider in a race. Maybe that is a consequence of MotoGP's status as the premier class. Whatever, it has been a very sad year for motorcycle sport, and motorsport come to that. Whilst we extend our thoughts and feelings to Marco's family and friends may they also extend to those of the other racers whom we have lost this year. May they all rest in peace.
R.I.P Marco Simoncelli