FIM Gala Ceremony 2013 - Road Racing - by FIM

Road Racing Pekka Päivärinta & Adolf Hänni FIM Sidecar World Champions

Suzuki Endurance Racing Team

FIM Endurance World Champion

Sam Lowes

FIM Supersport World Champion

Tom Sykes

FIM Superbike World Champion

Maverick Viñales

FIM Moto3 World Champion

Pol Espargaró

FIM Moto2 World Champion

Marc Márquez

FIM MotoGP World Champion

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Pekka Päivärinta & Adolf Hänni

FIM Sidecar World Champions Driver - Pekka Päivärinta Born on 1 November 1971 in Helsinki, Finland Passenger - Adolf Hänni Born on 1 June 1955 in Bern, Switzerland

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PAIVARINTA AND HANNI TAKE THE TITLE By a margin of just eleven points, after eight hard fought rounds at some of the best circuits throughout Europe, Finland’s Pekka Paivarinta with Swiss Passenger Adolf Hanni took the 2013 FIM Sidecar World Championship. This was Paivarintas’ fourth World Title, and Hannis’ third despite the experienced pairing only recording two race wins during the season long campaign.

In a turn of fortunes, from Germany onwards the season belonged to the British Birchall brothers as they went on a seven race / four round winning run to make partial amends for their uncharacteristically slow start to the year. Their uninterrupted one hundred and seventy five points haul created a tense climax to the season at the final round at Le Mans, France.

Three crews contested the main title fight. German driver Jorg Steinhausen with last year’s championship winning British passenger Ashley Hawes, British Brothers Ben and Tom Birchall and eventual champions Paivarinta and Hanni. It was Steinhausen and Hawes who won the opening race in Aragon, Spain to confirm themselves as contenders. However by the time the series reached the halfway stage at the Sachsenring in Germany the German/ British duo trailed the Finnish / Swiss combination by nine points.

Although the Birchalls rounded out their 2013 campaign in victorious style, their late efforts were still not sufficient to stop Paivarinta and Hanni taking the crown as they clinched the 2013 FIM Sidecar World Championship with a calculated third place at the last race. Ben and Tom Birchall ended the year as more than worthy runners-up whilst Steinhausen and Hawes rounded the top three in the final championship standings after another season of hectic three-wheel action.

Suzuki Endurance Racing Team

FIM Endurance World Champion Team Manager: Dominique Méliand (FRA) Permanent Riders: Vincent PHILIPPE (FRA), Julien DA COSTA (FRA), Anthony DELHALLE (FRA), Alex CUDLIN (AUS)

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13TH WORLD TITLE AND 4TH CONSECUTIVE CROWN The Suzuki Endurance Racing Team no longer needs any introducing. This French team has been carving its name in the annals of World Endurance since the 1980s. This season, the SERT won its 13th world title and remains unbeaten for the fourth year in a row. In 2013, the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team won by just five points over the Yamaha France GMT 94 Michelin Yamalube. This result reflects the tough nature of the entire season. It started with the Bol d’Or where the team had two crashes . Vincent Philippe, Anthony Delhalle and Julien Da Costa managed to snatch third place behind SRC Kawasaki and the Monster Energy Yamaha YART. At the Suzuka 8 Hours, SERT just missed the podium, finally chalking up a win at the 8 Hours of Oschersleben. At the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Suzuki team was again dogged by misfortune: an injured Anthony Delhalle was replaced by Alex Cudlin and the bike crashed at the start of the race, leading to a multitude of mechanical

problems and an overheating engine. But Dominique Méliand’s team never gave up. The mechanics worked in the pits for over an hour to change a cylinder head seal and send the Suzuki back on to the track. The SERT finished as the 26th team classified at Le Mans and 12th in Formula EWC. The entire team’s extraordinary determination enabled the SERT to scrape up nine points at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and go on to take a new FIM Endurance World Championship Title. The 2004 Endurance World Champion Yamaha France GMT 94 Michelin Yamalube pulled off a superb season with David Checa, Kenny Foray, Mathieu Lagrive and Maxime Berger to finish just behind the SERT. Technical problems and crashes did not get the better of Christophe Guyot’s crew who made it on to the podium at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Having dominated the two 24 hour races, the only ones in which it took part, Team SRC Kawasaki took third place in the overall world standings.

ÂŠ Eric Malherbe

Sam Lowes

FIM Supersport World Champion Born on 14 September 1990 in Lincoln, Great Britain

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LOWES LAYS DOWN THE LAW IN SUPERSPORT It took Sam Lowes just three years in the Supersport World Championship to reach the top of the category and clinch the title onboard the Yamaha of Russian team Yacknich Motorsport. With 250 points, the young English rider from Lincolnshire pulled off a textbook 2013 season. Apart from a DNF at the Aragon circuit at the start of the season for mechanical reasons, Lowes never finished lower than the second step on the podium. With six victories, five second places, nine pole positions and seven lap records, Sam Lowes’ 2013 record is truly exceptional.

speed and regularity and the reliability of his Yamaha R6 wore down the Turkish rider’s resistance in the end. At just 23 years old, Sam Lowes is the third British rider to be crowned Supersport World Champion. With a sixth place in the Championship for his first season in 2011, a third last year and the Championship title this year, Sam Lowes has clearly still got something up his sleeve so don’t expect this young Brit to rest on his laurels. We should be seeing him in Moto2 in 2014 for a new challenge worthy of his talents.

Heir to 2009 champion Crutchlow and 2011 winner Davies, Sam Lowes has enabled Yamaha to add a new title to their roll of honour. And like his peers before him, Lowes had to battle it out with three-times World Champion and great Supersport specialist, Turkey’s Kenan Sofuoglu. Throughout the season, the two men went head to head and Sofuoglu made it on to the highest step of the podium on five occasions. But Lowes’

ÂŠ Eric Malherbe

Tom Sykes

FIM Superbike World Champion Born on 19 August 1985 in Huddersfield, Great Britain

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20 YEARS AFTER SCOTT RUSSELL In 1993, America’s Scott Russell gave Kawasaki their first world crown in the FIM Superbike World Championship. Twenty years later, in 2013, Tom Sykes has won the FIM Superbike World Championship, giving Kawasaki its second ever title. The battle for this world title, which eluded Tom Sykes and Kawasaki last year, falling to Max Biaggi on Aprilia by just half a point, was particularly hard fought this year. With eight pole positions, eighteen podiums including nine wins, and thirteen lap records, Tom Sykes chalked up some impressive statistics in 2013. But he did not have an easy ride against Marco Melandri on the factory BMW and especially the two Aprilia riders, Eugene Laverty and Sylvain Guintoli. Guintoli led the Championship for quite a chunk of the season before injuring his shoulder during training in the summer. Laverty had a fabulous end-ofseason, piling on the pressure for Tom Sykes. The Irish

rider on his Aprilia matched his Kawasaki rival in terms of the number of victories (nine apiece) and ended up World Vice Champion, just 23 points behind a fabulous Tom Sykes who kept his nerve to win the category and take home the title. Tom Sykes is a born attacker. Very impressive aboard the Kawasaki and capable of extraordinary laps during the Superpole sessions, he is also a very reliable rider. Despite three DNF’s caused by mechanical problems, he did not have a single crash all season. Tom Sykes made his World Superbike Championship début in 2009 with Yamaha alongside Ben Spies the year the American won the title. He has been faithful to Kawasaki since 2010 and has taken part in all the development phases of the current ZX-10R. Sykes and the Ninja, or the fabulous tale of a man and his machine united on the road to glory.

Maverick Viñales

FIM Moto3 World Champion Born on 12 January 1995 in Figueres, Spain

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TOP GUNS TAKE IT TO THE WIRE The battle for the 2013 Moto3 title was one of the most closely contested championships in the history of Grand Prix motorcycle racing, with three riders separated by just five points in a winner-takes-all battle at Valencia in the last race of the season. The showdown was given extra “salsa” by the fact that all three contenders were Spanish: Luis Salom, Maverick Viñales and Alex Rins knowing that victory for any of them in front of their home crowd would be enough to secure the championship. Viñales had been a late arrival to the party, the KTM rider making up 20 points on his two compatriots in a dramatic penultimate round in Japan, where Salom and Rins both crashed out as their rival clinched his fourteenth podium from sixteen races so far in second place. Despite his unerring consistency (his only nonpodium finishes had been a fourth at Silverstone and a fifth at Sepang), Viñales had not actually won a race since the fourth round at Le Mans but he saved his best performance until last. After an early crash for Salom, Viñales overcame Rins in a thrilling fight to the final corner that saw him clinch the title and finally confirm the sensational potential he showed during his rookie 125cc campaign in 2011, when he took a maiden victory in only his fourth appearance.

As well as losing out to Viñales in that dramatic final corner, Rins was also beaten in the drag to the line at Valencia by Germany’s Jonas Folger but third place was enough to seal the runner-up spot in the championship and brought his podium record for the season to fourteen, including five wins, whilst Salom dropped to third in the championship with twelve podiums and seven victories. Another Spaniard, Alex Marquez was the only other race winner during 2013, the younger brother to MotoGP World Champion Marc taking his debut success at Motegi in a season completely dominated by KTM. The Austrian factory won every round, adding to four straight wins at the end of 2012, setting a new record for successive victories by a manufacturer in the history of the Moto3 and 125cc World Championships. Maverick Viñales – who is famously named after the character played by Tom Cruise in the film “Top Gun” – meanwhile becomes his country’s tenth winner of the minor category world title, joining such illustrious names as Angel Nieto, Jorge Martinez, Alex Criville, Emilio Alzamora, Dani Pedrosa, Alvaro Bautista, Julian Simon, Marc Marquez and Nico Terol.

漏 Stan Perec

Pol Espargar贸

FIM Moto2 World Champion Born on 10 June 1991 in Granollers, Spain

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POL COMES OF AGE After being the closest challenger to Marc Márquez’s dominance of the Moto2 World Championship with eight pole positions and four race victories in 2012, Spanish rider Pol Espargaró started the 2013 season as a clear title favourite – a billing he lived up to with victory in the opening round of the season in Qatar after an entertaining battle with Britain’s Scott Redding. Espargaró’s championship lead did not last long, however, a crash at the second round in Texas handing the initiative to Redding, who consolidated with a strong run of results that included his maiden Moto2 win at Le Mans - his country’s first in the intermediate class since Jeremy McWilliams in 2001 – backed up swiftly by his second in Barcelona. As usual in the extremely competitive Moto2 class the victories were spread out amongst a number of riders as the season progressed – Tito Rabat, Nico Terol, Jordi Torres and Mika Kallio all enjoying their maiden successes in the four-stroke format – but Redding’s third of the season in his home Grand Prix at Silverstone was a standout moment. A dominant performance in a race that Redding controlled from start to finish combined with eighth place for Espargaró and opened up a 38-point advantage for the Marc VDS rider at the top. With six races to go Redding was in a strong position to

become his country’s first World Champion at any level of Grand Prix road racing since Barry Sheene in 1977. However, Espargaró refused to give up the fight and with the pressure now off he returned to winning form in the next round at Misano. Now it was Redding who was riding on the defensive and consecutive podiums for his Spanish rival at Aragon and Sepang closed the gap still further. Then, during free practice for the next round at Phillip Island, a rare mistake by Redding left him with a broken wrist, his title dreams in tatters as Espargaró romped to an easy win in the race. Against all the odds Redding returned seven days later to race in Japan with a plate and screws in his wrist but a crash caused by another rider on the first lap also involved him and Tito Rabat – still an outside contender thanks to wins at Indianapolis and Sepang – and effectively ended their challenge for good. Espargaró took no chances and proved that he was a deserving World Champion with another superb ride to claim his sixth victory of the season and the title. The 22-year-old Spaniard becomes only the fourth Moto2 World Champion in history but the sixth Spaniard to win the intermediate class crown, joining Sito Pons, Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo, Toni Elias and Marc Márquez.

Marc Márquez

FIM MotoGP World Champion Born on 17 February 1993 in Cervera, Spain

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A MARC OF DISTINCTION ! The retirement of Casey Stoner left a space in the Repsol Honda Team for 2013, giving HRC the ideal opportunity to launch a highly promising premier-class career with Marc Márquez alongside an experienced team-mate, Dani Pedrosa. It was a huge show of faith from the Japanese factory in a 20-year-old rookie but even they could not have imagined the return they would get on a prodigious talent that had already seen him crowned 125cc and Moto2 World Champion in 2010 and 2012 respectively. Márquez adapted fast to the RC213V machine during winter testing and demonstrated that he was not fazed by reputations in the opening round in Qatar, where he battled with Valentino Rossi for second place, eventually losing out to the Italian but finishing ahead of Pedrosa in third place, in a race won by Jorge Lorenzo. An historic maiden victory followed in round two at the inaugural Grand Prix of the Americas in Austin, Texas, where Márquez proved that he was more than a match for his rivals at a circuit where none of them had raced before in the process taking records away from Freddie Spencer as the youngest ever pole-sitter and race winner in MotoGP. Lorenzo and Pedrosa came back strongly but collarbone injuries for the pair at Assen and Sachsenring coincided with a return to winning form for Márquez, who leapt at the opportunity to top the championship with a run

of four straight victories at Sachsenring, Laguna Seca, Indianapolis and Brno. Lorenzo fought back with a stunning last-lap win over Márquez at Silverstone, where Pedrosa finished third - a top-three result that was repeated in Misano. Pedrosa’s title challenge was ended in the next round at Aragon, where contact with Márquez – already under pressure for his aggressive riding style – caused damage to his traction control cable and he crashed out. In Australia, a black flag for Márquez cost him his first opportunity to wrap up the title and gave Lorenzo an unexpected chance to take the fight to the wire. Back-to-back victories for Lorenzo in Australia and Japan set up a final showdown in the last race of the season at Valencia, although his hopes of retaining a crown rested on victory with Márquez finishing outside the top four. Lorenzo kept his side of the bargain with a stunning ride, blocking the field on the early laps in the hope that Márquez might be forced into a mistake, but the youngster showed the maturity of a deserving champion to bring his bike home safely in third place. In doing so Marc Márquez became just the fourth rider in the 65-year history of Grand Prix racing to win world titles in three different categories after Mike Hailwood, Phil Read and Valentino Rossi. He is also the youngest ever rider to clinch the MotoGP title and the first rookie premier-class World Champion for 35 years. © Stan Perec 129