The 2010 Motorcycle Grand Prix season kicked off this afternoon at high noon CST (20:00 local time in Qatar). In Grand Prix racing the competition begins with the lights in front of the riders going from red to off. There were 25 riders lined up for the start of the race. When the lights flicked off, 24 125cc motorcycles pushed off from their starting position to begin the race. Toward the back of the field, history repeats itself. As the case with many scooter rides with your pals, there was a Lambretta that couldn’t quite get started and was being frantically pushed to one side pleading for assistance. Just like any large group ride where the front can’t see the back, the rest moved on and the lonely rider was left behind. All the hard work of the team and rider had gone for not. Poor Louis Salom, a former Red Bull Rookie league front runner, had been left in the lurch by a mechanical problem. Lets just hope that by the next round in Japan they sort out their mechanical gremlins and are rewarded with better luck for their efforts.
(Note: A Piaggio product won the race)
That’s pretty awesome!
Best Brooke post ever.
Praise from on high if not high praise.
Why can’t it be both?
Did we ever sort out what exactly these machines are? Loncins? I’m still unclear on how (and even more curious WHY) they secured the Lambretta name.
I guess I could actually do some investigative reporting. I’m going to ask.
You said the winner was riding a Piaggio product. But it looks like the winner was Valentino Rossi on a Yamaha. Can you clarify?
There are three classifications of Grand Prix motorcycle road racing. In addition to the premier class, known as MotoGP where Valentino Rossi was the victor, there are races for 125cc motorcycles and a new class called Moto2. The first race of the day in Grand Prix motorcycle racing is the 125cc race. Sentence three of the post states the class. The note at the end is a bit of a joke in terms of esoteric scooter rivalry as well as the representation of manufacturers in the class. It happens that 22 of the 25 competitors in the race were on Aprilia, Gilera or Derbi branded machines. All three of those companies are owned by the Piaggio group and are all essentially Aprilia race machines. A lone Honda and the pair of Lambretta machines are the only standouts. I’ve emailed Engines Engineering to get more information on their machine but have yet to hear back. I wrote in English as my Italian is non-existent so maybe I’ll need to find a good translator.