The Biker Place

With the top 3 riders of the 2007 250cc MotoGP championship leaving to race in MotoGP next year (Lorenzo, Dovizioso and De Angelis) we’ve decided now would be a good time to look at who is left and who has arrived to fill the gaps.

Note: This isn’t a 2008 season preview and we will not be making any predictions in this post, that will come later. This post is to simply give a little more information on some of the riders in the 250cc GP Championship. Part 1 will focus on 4 riders in next seasons championship, Kallio, Bautista, Faubel and Pesek.

Mika Kallio

Kallio, 25 from Finland, ended the 2007 250cc championship in 7th place for the Red Bull KTM team in his first year of 250cc racing after making the step up from the 125cc championship.

Kallio twice finished runner-up in the 125cc class and lost the championship in 2005 by just five points to Thomas Lüthi. He lost exactly five points, with only three races to go, at the Qatar Grand Prix when his KTM team-mate, Gábor Talmácsi, pulled out from behind the slipstream and passed him on the last few metres of the race to take the win by 0.017 seconds. Kallio had started from pole position and led every lap of the race and had eased off on the home straight, as Talmácsi had been ordered to stay back by the team as he wasn’t a title contender. After the race, Talmácsi later claimed that he wasn’t aware it was the last lap of the race. However, this contradicts the way he celebrated the victory right after the finish line, and the fact that the team had put up a “one lap to go” sign for him on the penultimate lap.

Had he obeyed the team order, Kallio and KTM would’ve won the championship due to a higher number of race wins (5 vs. Lüthi’s 4). Needless to say, Talmácsi was fired by the team at the end of the season.

Kallio will compete in the 2008 season for KTM Red Bull again alongside team mate Hiroshi Aoyama.

Interesting Fact: In November 2006, Mika Kallio won the Best Finnish Motorsport Driver 2006 award for the second year running. He collected 33.1% of all votes and pipped Enduro world champion Samuli Aro, rally driver Marcus Grönholm and F1 star Kimi Räikkönen.

Álvaro Bautista

Álvaro Bautista ended his debut season in the 250cc MotoGP championship in 4th place, behind the aforementioned Lorenzo, Dovizioso and De Angelis. He took his MVA Aspar Aprilia to 2 race wins and 7 podium finishes to cap an impressive season for the 23 year old Spaniard, in which he was awarded the Rookie of the Year for the 250cc class.

Bautista will return to the 2008 season on the Aspar Aprilia, and Winter testing in Jerez ended well for him. He posted the second fatest time on the final day of testing, behind Kallio.

Following his superb debut season, many will be looking for Bautista to kick on next year and emulate fellow spaniard Jorge Lorenzo by challenging for the 250cc World Championship.

Hector Faubel

Spaniard Hector Faubel steps up to the 250cc class with his Team Aspar Aprilia after ending 2007 season as runner-up in the 125cc championship to Gábor Talmácsi.

2008 will be Faubel’s return to the 250cc class, after a pretty ordinary spell between 2002 and 2004 in which his highest championship finish was 13th. Faubel decided to drop into the 125cc class and finished 9th in his first season, 3rd the next season and finished runner-up to title winner Gabor Talmacsi in 2007.

Faubel ended the Winter testing in Jerez with good lap times on his Aspar Aprilia posting the 3rd fastest time of the day.

Lukáš Pešek - Rookie

Pešek, 22 year old Czech, is making the step up to the 250cc championship this year after 3 full seasons in the 125cc championship in which improved each year. In 2005 he was 19th, in 2006 6th and in 2007 4th. He has won two Grand Prix’s, the races at Shanghai and Phillip Island in 2007. Lukáš Pešek was one of only 3 riders not riding an Aprilia to finish in the top ten in the 125cc World Championship this year as he took his Derbi to 4th place overall.

For 2008 Lukáš Pešek signed a one-year contract with an option with the Czech-Swiss owned Emmi Caffe Latte team. Pešek will have to cope with the fact that he will be riding the Aprilia model from season 2007 when his season gets underway, with no support from the factory. All development and support work will be down to the Emmi Caffe Latte team. Emmi are expecting a top ten finish from the Czech rider and to then receive support from Aprilia for the 2009 season.

How much impact riding the 2007 Aprilia will have on Pešek is unknown at this point but it is worth noting that eventual champion, and now Rossi team mate in MotoGP, Jorge Lorenzo began the 2007 season on the 2006 model bike.

Interesting Fact: Although we’ve listed him as a rookie Pesek’s move to 250’s means he will race in the class for the first time since 2003, when he rode half a season on a Yamaha with a 12th place in Australia his best result.

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