Valentino Rossi
Sunday, 25th of October 2009 will go down in history as a unique and one of the greatest days for Yamaha Motorsport. It is the day on which Yamaha managed to win both the driver’s titles in motorcycle racings premiere classes, viz. MotoGP and Superbikes.Valentino Rossi managed to finish third in a Malaysian GP where the rains showed up at the very last minute for the MotoGP class and wrapped up his title with one race to go in Valencia. Just a few hours later, Ben Spies finished Race 2 of the last round of WSBK in 5th place, and more importantly for him, Noriyuki Haga did not win, thus allowing him to clinch his and here is the surprising part- Yamaha’s first title in that series.
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Vale’ won his 9th (yeah thats right-9th) title in motorcycle racing and his 7th in the premiere class (500cc+MotoGP). He might just have come closer to people actually recognizing him as THE greatest man to have ever raced motorcycles after this win. This is his 4th title for Yamaha, his most for any manufacturer(He won three for Honda- 1 500cc and 2 MotoGP, and two for Aprilia- 125cc and 250cc). He has been a significant signing for Yamaha especially because of the fact that they were always a distant second behind Honda in the championships before his arrival. Rossi not only could ride the bike fast, but he brought along with him Jeremy Burgess and others from his previous setup and helped immensely in developing the YZR-M1, Yamaha’s MotoGP contender. In his earlier seasons with the factory Yamaha team, he was the sole fighter on the track and the distinct lack of support from his teammates was apparent and he was mostly fighting hard to stave off rivals from Honda especially. This could be essentially attributed to the Honda RC211V’s early superiority over the M1 and partly to the lack of quality teammates. Although Colin Edwards is a great rider in his own right, he never would turn up for more than a couple of races a season. But over the years, the M1 has seen greater development and the leveling out of the field due to the 800cc class restrictions. In no small measure could this also be attributed to Rossi’s development efforts. But this season, his primary rival was his own team mate Jorge’ Lorenzo. The rookie spaniard has been sensational and things could have been different for him had luck been on his side. Time and again though, Rossi has shown tremendous mental strength over the course of a season especially with his mind games against Se’te’ Gibernau in his first two years at Yamaha and against Casey Stoner two seasons ago. But it was much more friendlier this time round and the now veteran of MotoGP has another reason and another of his unique methods of celebrations to offer us all. If it had been the ‘doctor’ act before, this time round it was the egg. According to Rossi, this is the rationale behind his celebrations- ” In Italy we say an old chicken makes good soup but can no longer lay eggs! I am like the old chicken – 30 years now – but I have made another egg! That’s nine!”
If it was rivalry against a younger teammate for Rossi, it was the exact opposite for Ben Spies. He had to fight off an experienced adversary who was an old faithful to his current team in the form of Noriyuki Haga. In his rookie year itself, the reigning AMA Superbike champion won the WSBK title. ‘Nitro’ Nori was actually in the points lead before coming into the last round at Portimao. He crashed out on lap 7 of Race1 which Spies won. This made matters easier for the Texan who had to just finish sixth or higher if Haga won. The rest as they is history and we have a rookie champion in WSBK. One surprising fact is that this is Yamaha’s maiden WSBK title. Especially hard to fathom because over the years, their YZF-R1 street bike has outperformed the CBR and the Ducati 998. But this year Yamaha took the title in stunning fashion.
Ben Spies Yamaha
What made the titles special for this great Japanese manufacturer is that they came on the same day, don’t know when has that happened to any other team. I mean Honda and others might have won both the premiere titles in the same year previously, but actually whether anyone managed it on the same day, I don’t know!!!
