Young Guns Set To Load MotoGP Bullets

Honda will go into the 2006 MotoGP series with their youngest line-up ever, no less than four riders in their early twenties have already signed to race RCVs next season. Marco Melandri and Nicky Hayden, who raced RC211Vs to second and third places, respectively, in the 2005 series, will be joined by young Spaniards Dani Pedrosa and Toni Elias in Honda teams.

Hayden, 24, from Kentucky enters his fourth season aboard the 990cc V-5 250 plus horsepower four-stroke. The former AMA Superbike Champion scored his maiden GP victory at his ‘Home’ race at Laguna Seca this year and ended the season with four successive podium finishes, statistics that bode well for 2006.

Marco Melandri - the heir apparent

Team Gresini Honda has retained the considerable talents of Italian Marco Melandri for 2006. Melandri, a former 250cc champion, finished the 2005 Honda debut season with a flourish winning the final two grands prix of the season to secure his impressive second place in the championship.

Melandri is in many ways the most likely heir to Rossi’s throne when Rossi decides to pursue interests and challenges beyond Motorcycle racing, most likely in Formula 1 in a Ferrari, though Red Bull are apparently very keen to secure the services of the charismatic and supremely talented Italian phenomenom and Red Bull’s Dietrich Mateschitz is known for his persuasiveness.

Like the two most successful GP riders of all time (Rossi and Giacomo Agostini), Melandri is Italian, and won his first premier class race a few weeks ago at 23 years and 77 days, just ten days older than Agostini was when he won his first 500 race at Imatra in Finland in 1965. Melandri’s style suits that of a Grand Prix bike, he was now won titles in every class of competition and his two race wins have shown he can win against Rossi at his best.

In winning the Turkish Grand Prix, Melandri slipped into elite company, becoming the fifth youngest rider in history to win three Grand Prix classes – those ahead of him are Mike Hailwood (21 years 75 days), Rossi (21 years 144 days), Johnny Cecotto 21 years 187 days and John Surtees (22 years 148 days). Winning in three classes indicates far more than just speed on a motorcycle – it indicates an ability to change riding styles based on the requirements of winning regardless of the characteristics of the machinery – the ability to adapt God-given talent and superb motor responses in different ways to achieve the desired outcome.

Not surprisingly, Hailwood, Cecotto and Surtees all found themselves in Formula 1 driving cars before their careers were finished, (and Rossi is an odds-on chance to get there too), with Surtees the only human to have reached the pinnacle of both sports. Our bet is that Rossi will attempt to climb that mountain, but the point of this paragraph is that Melandri’s star is yet to fully rise.

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