The Riders

Valentino Rossi, Ducati Rider 2011

Valentino Rossi, Ducati Rider 2011.
Valentino Rossi was born with racing already in his blood. His father, Graziano, had established himself as a Grand Prix rider before his career was cut short by injury and it didn’t take long for ‘Vale’ to pick up his mantle, first riding a mini dirt bike in his family’s backyard before he was three and going on to win his first regional minibike championship title in 1992.

At just 14, Valentino was placed on Cagiva’s Claudio Lusuardirun team for the Sport Production 125cc class. He impressed and won his first national title in this class, and in 1995 Vale signed a three-year deal with Aprilia and advanced to the European Championship.

Valentino established a routine of learning a class for one season before topping it the next, quickly rising through the ranks of the 125cc and 250cc classes before adding the prestigious 500cc crown to his résumé in 2001 by notching no fewer than eleven race wins.

Rossi was fielded in Honda’s HRC factory team on a 990cc RC211V for the inaugural year of the MotoGP era. In 2002 he took the crown by a commanding 140 points and concreted his supremacy the next year with a fifth World Championship of his career. Even a change of motorcycle was not enough to stop the young Italian as he won the 2004 and 2005 season championships with the Yamaha team.

After an uncharacteristic dip in form in 2006 and 2007, the first year of the 800cc MotoGP era, the ’08 season marked a return to glory as Valentino won nine races on his way to World Championships number eight and nine.

Rossi lost any chance of a successful title defence in 2010 when he crashed and suffered an exposed fracture of his right tibia. After undergoing an operation and intensive therapy to repair the fracture Valentino returned to action at the Sachsenring, just forty-one days after his crash, where he rode to a heroic fourth-place result in his comeback race. Still plagued by injury, Valentino nonetheless climbed the podium seven times in 2010 to finish third on the year behind new champion Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa.

The Italian made the move to Ducati alongside Nicky Hayden for the 2011 season. Over the winter Valentino once again underwent an intensive rehabilitation program in preparation for the offseason tests, and made his debut for his new team in Qatar in March 2011.

Nicky Hayden, Ducati Rider 2011

Nicky Hayden, Ducati Rider 2011
Ducati welcomed American new-boy, Nicky Hayden to its MotoGP team in 2009.

One of three motorcycling brothers, Nicky began racing very early on against racers twice his age and often had to have one of his family or crew holding him up at the back of the grid, as his feet couldn’t reach the ground!

Rising through the AMA Championships in the United States, Nicky smashed records at the majority of stages in his early career. At only 17, Nicky was racing a factory Honda RC45 Superbike, before conquering the AMA Supersport in 1999, at just 18 years of age. 2001 was his first full season as an AMA Superbike rider, finishing within 40 points of the overall Championship winner, but 2002 was when Nicky really made his mark.

The ‘Kentucky Kid’ became the youngest ever AMA Superbike Champion by defeating reigning champion Matt Mladin and taking victory at the Daytona 200. As a result, Nicky was snapped up by Repsol Honda MotoGP team to partner Valentino Rossi. Unfazed by such starry company, Nicky achieved a commendable fifth place in the Championship standings to claim the ‘Rookie-of-the-year’ award, followed up by a third place finish in 2005.

2006 was a season to remember for Nicky as he won a very hard fought Championship battle with former team mate, Valentino Rossi. Rossi, then riding for Yamaha finished the season a mere five points behind Hayden, having crashed out in the final round of the season.

In contrast, however, 2007 and 2008 were difficult seasons for Nicky. On the 15th September 2008 it was announced that Nicky would be joining Casey Stoner in the Ducati Corse garage in 2009, completing a formidable MotoGP line-up for the factory Ducati team.

In 2011, Nicky is joined in the Ducati garage by the nine time champion Valentino Rossi.