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2003 Grand Prix Motorcycle Racing Season
The 2003 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season was the 55th F.I.M. Road racing World Championship season. The season consisted of 16 races, beginning with the Japanese motorcycle Grand Prix on 6 April 2003 and ending with the Valencian Community motorcycle Grand Prix on 2 November. Season summary Defending champion Valentino Rossi won his 3rd MotoGP championship in 2003, winning 9 races, highlighted by his win at Phillip Island where he was given a 10-second penalty for passing under a yellow flag and he overcame the penalty by winning the race with more than 10 seconds in hand. Rossi had become dissatisfied with his relationship with the Honda Racing Corporation and as the season progressed and HRC tried to get Rossi to sign a new contract, Rossi demurred until finally announcing at the end of the year that he would be leaving Honda. He soon signed with Yamaha and took Jeremy Burgess with him to be his crew chief. The season was marred by Daijiro Kato being killed at the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fédération Internationale De Motocyclisme
The Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM; en, International Motorcycling Federation) is the global governing/sanctioning body of motorcycle racing. It represents 116 national motorcycle federations that are divided into six regional continental unions. There are seven motorcycle-racing disciplines that FIM covers, encompassing 82 world championships as well as hundreds of secondary championships: enduro, trial, circuit racing, motocross and supermoto, cross-country, e-bike, and track racing. FIM is also involved in many non-racing activities that promote the sport, its safety, and support relevant public policy. The FIM is also the first international sporting federation to publish an Environmental Code, in 1994. In 2007, a Commission for Women in Motorcycling was created by the FIM in order to promote the use of powered two-wheelers and the motorcycle sport among women. History The FIM was born from the ''Fédération Internationale des Clubs Motocyclistes'' (F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yamaha Motor Company
is a Japanese multinational manufacturer of motorcycles, marine products such as boats and outboard motors, and other motorized products. The company was established in 1955 upon separation from Yamaha Corporation (however, Yamaha Corporation is still the largest private company shareholder with 9.92%, as of 2019), and is headquartered in Iwata, Shizuoka, Japan. The company conducts development, production and marketing operations through 109 consolidated subsidiaries as of 2012. Led by Genichi Kawakami, the company's founder and first president, Yamaha Motor spun off from musical instrument manufacturer Yamaha Corporation in 1955 and began production of its first product, the YA-1 125cc motorcycle. It was quickly successful and won the 3rd Mount Fuji Ascent Race in its class. The company's products include motorcycles, scooters, motorized bicycles, boats, sail boats, personal water craft, swimming pools, utility boats, fishing boats, outboard motors, 4-wheel ATVs, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ducati Desmosedici
The Ducati Desmosedici is a four-stroke V4 engine racing motorcycle made by Ducati for MotoGP racing. The series nomenclature is ''GP'' with the two-digit year appended, such as Desmosedici GP10 for 2010. In 2006 Ducati made a short production run of 1,500 street-legal variants, the Desmosedici RR. Background Ducati abandoned the Grand Prix racing scene at the start of the 1970s. For many years the 500 class was essentially a class for two-stroke motorcycles, an engineering technology that was far removed from the four-stroke road-going machines sold by Ducati. Technical rules changed in 2002, giving priority to four-stroke machinery and turning the 500 class of World Road Racing into the MotoGP Championship. This convinced Ducati to make a much-awaited return to the track in the new MotoGP class. Ducati history is classically based on 90° V-twin (or L-twin) engines, using desmodromic valve technology. Initially, Ducati considered the possibility of creating a MotoGP 'super ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Superbike Racing
Superbike racing is a category of motorcycle racing that employs highly modified production motorcycles, as opposed to MotoGP in which purpose-built motorcycles are used. The Superbike World Championship is the official world championship series, though national Superbike championships are held in many countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, Australia and Canada. Superbike racing is generally popular with manufacturers, since it helps promote and sell their product, as captured by the slogan "Win on Sunday; Sell on Monday". Characteristics of Superbike racing motorcycles Superbike racing motorcycles are derived from standard production models, so for a bike to be eligible, the manufacturer must first homologate the model and manufacture the required number of roadgoing machines. While rules vary from series to series, in general the motorcycles must maintain the same profile as their roadgoing counterparts, with the same overall appearance as seen from th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ducati
Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. () is the motorcycle-manufacturing division of Italian company Ducati, headquartered in Bologna, Italy. The company is directly owned by Italian automotive manufacturer Lamborghini, whose German parent company is Audi, itself owned by the Volkswagen Group. History In 1926 Antonio Cavalieri Ducati and his three sons, Adriano, Marcello, and Bruno, founded ''Società Scientifica Radiobrevetti Ducati'' (SSR Ducati) in Bologna to produce vacuum tubes, condensers and other radio components. In 1935 they had become successful enough to enable construction of a new factory in the Borgo Panigale area of the city. Production was maintained during World War II, despite the Ducati factory being a repeated target of Allied bombing. It was finally destroyed by around 40 Consolidated B-24 Liberators on 12 October 1944 as part of the United States Army Air Forces's Operation Pancake, which involved some 700 aircraft flying from airfields in the Province of Foggia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colin Edwards
Colin Edwards II (born February 27, 1974), nicknamed the "Texas Tornado", is an American former professional motorcycle racer who retired half-way through the 2014 season, but continues in the sport as a factory test rider. He is a two-time World Superbike champion and competed in the MotoGP class from 2003 to 2014. Early years Edwards was born in Conroe, Texas. At the age of three, his Australian father, Colin Edwards Sr. (an amateur motorcycle racer himself), introduced him to a minibike, and Edwards entered his first motocross race at the age of four. Over the next ten years, Edwards became one of the top-ranked junior motocross competitors in the US, winning dozens of races in the 50cc to 80cc categories in local, regional and national events. In 1988 at the age of 14, Edwards stopped competing in motocross races, having become distracted by the normal demands of being a teenager. However, in 1990, Edwards and his father attended a motorcycle road race event in north T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marco Melandri
Marco Melandri (born 7 August 1982) is an Italian retired motorcycle road racer who is a five-time premier class race winner. He is the 2002 250 cc World Champion and runner-up in 125 cc, MotoGP and Superbike World Championship. He competed in the MotoGP class from 2003 to 2010 and then a brief return with Aprilia in 2015. Melandri's best years in MotoGP came in and with these two seasons being the only seasons he won races in MotoGP, the same as title rival Nicky Hayden. Melandri finished runner-up in to Valentino Rossi with two wins. The season is regarded as his best ever as he won three races and finished 24 points behind eventual champion Nicky Hayden. In both these seasons he won more races than title rival Hayden, finishing ahead of Hayden in 2005 and just behind him in 2006. Melandri has 22 race wins in Grand Prix motorcycle racing including five in MotoGP. Melandri switched to the Superbike World Championship in 2011, earning 22 wins in his first six ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Troy Bayliss
Troy Bayliss (born 30 March 1969 in Taree, New South Wales, Australia) is an Australian motorcycle racer. During his career Bayliss won the Superbike World Championship three times and a MotoGP race, all with Ducati. He finished his career after winning the 2008 World Superbike title. His 52 World Superbike victories ranks third all time in the history of the championship behind Jonathan Rea and Carl Fogarty. Early life Bayliss did much of his growing up in the Northwest NSW town of Warialda. His father, Warren, was a baker, and his mother Lorraine drove a local school bus part-time. The family lived across from the local high school. By age 10, he was an accomplished motocross rider, and could often be found riding through the local bushland which surrounded the town and came right up to the back of the family house. The family moved to Taree when Bayliss was about 11 years old. Bayliss showed much promise as a youngster in the sport, however when he entered his teens his e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicky Hayden
Nicholas Patrick Hayden (July 30, 1981 May 22, 2017), nicknamed "The Kentucky Kid", was an American professional motorcycle racer who won the MotoGP World Championship in 2006. Hayden began racing motorcycles at a young age. He began his road racing career in the CMRA before progressing to the AMA Supersport Championship and then to the AMA Superbike Championship. He won the AMA title in 2002 and was approached by the Repsol Honda team to race for them in MotoGP in 2003. Hayden largely had mixed results in his first 2 seasons at Repsol Honda only getting 4 podiums. He then rallied in the 2005 season by scoring his first Grand Prix win at Laguna Seca, and finishing third in the standings at the end of the season. The next year, 2006, would be Hayden's best in motorcycle racing as he won the 2006 MotoGP world title, breaking Valentino Rossi's five-year consecutive streak. He remained with Honda for two more seasons without a win, before moving to Ducati for 2009. Hayden had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Honda RC211V
The Honda RC211V is a 990 cc (60 cu in) four-stroke race motorcycle from HRC ( Honda Racing Corporation) developed in 2001 to replace the two-stroke Honda NSR500. It was developed as a direct result of major changes to the regulations for the World Championship motorcycle road racing class for the 2002 season. The name of the class was modified to ''MotoGP'', and while two-stroke engines remained limited to and four cylinders, four-stroke engines were now allowed to be as large as and from three to six cylinders – which led many teams to switch to four-stroke designs. The model name designates the following: * RC = Honda's traditional racing prefix for 4-stroke bikes * 211 = first works bike of the 21st century * V = V engine The RC211V was replaced in 2007 by the RC212V. 2002 In 2002, the debut year of the RC211V, Honda and Valentino Rossi dominated by winning the constructors' championship by more than 100 points over their nearest rival. The bike underwent small modifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sete Gibernau
Manuel "Sete" Gibernau Bultó (born 15 December 1972) is a Spanish former professional Grand Prix motorcycle road racer who is a 9-time 500cc/MotoGP race winner and a two-time overall runner-up in and . His racing career spans three different eras of motorcycle racing, beginning with the two-stroke-dominated period prior to the 2002 season, and the four-stroke MotoGP era. He returned to racing in 2019 to compete in the electric-powered MotoE World Cup. Gibernau was one of the top riders in Grand Prix racing at the beginning of the MotoGP era. Career Early career Gibernau is the grandson of Francisco Xavier "Paco" Bultó, the founder of the Spanish Bultaco motorcycle company. He began his competitive careers in observed trials competitions. After trying many different bike categories, in particular those built by his uncle, Gibernau finally turned to road racing in 1990. In 1992, he competed in the Spanish 125cc Gilera Cup championship and entered into his first Grand Prix race ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suzuka Circuit
The , more famously known as the , is a long motorsport race track located in Ino, Suzuka City, Mie Prefecture, Japan and operated by Honda Mobilityland, a subsidiary of Honda Motor Co, Ltd. It has a capacity of 155,000. Introduction Soichiro Honda decided to develop a new permanent circuit in Mie prefecture in the late 1950s. Designed as a Honda test track in 1962 by Dutchman John "Hans" Hugenholtz, the most iconic feature of the track is its "figure eight" layout, with the long back straight passing over the front section by means of an overpass. It is one of only two FIA Grade 1 licensed tracks to have a "figure eight" layout, the other one being the Fiorano Circuit. The circuit has been modified at least eight times: In 1983 a chicane was inserted at the last curve to slow the cars into the pit straight; the original circuit was an incredibly fast track with only one slow corner; without the Casio chicane some cars would go through the final long right-hand corne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
