Historic win in Estoril for Mika Kallio

Red Bull KTM rider Mika Kallio took his first-ever win in the 125 cc Road Racing World Championship on Sunday, when he narrowly held off the challenge of Spain's Hector Faubel to go under the chequered flag just 0.008 seconds ahead. Thomas Lüthi of Switzerland was 3rd.
      The Finn, who started from pole position, now holds a commanding lead in the riders' championship rankings after two races, for he was second in Spain last week. Kallio has 45 points, to the 31 of Italian Marco Simoncelli, the winner in Jerez. Simoncelli could do no better than 10th on Sunday.
     
There was a distinct sense of history in the making as Kallio sprayed champagne around the podium in Portugal. The last time a Finnish rider won an RR event was in 1976, when Pentti Korhonen won a 350cc competition in Opatija, Yugoslavia. It was Korhonen's only World Championship victory.
      Before that, we must go back to the early 1970s and the heyday of Jarno "The Baron" Saarinen and his trusty adjutant Teuvo Länsivuori. The prodigiously talented Saarinen managed to take the World Championship at 250cc and also won 15 Grands Prix before his death at Monza in 1973, and Länsivuori won 8 GP events, in the times when Finland had its own place on the international road racing calendar and the sport was extremely popular here, before the Formula One stars emerged.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Motor Sports: Mika Kallio starts RR season with 2nd place in Jerez (11.4.2005)
  1973-2003: Saarinen's flame still burns (20.5.2003)

Links:
  Mika Kallio
  Moto GP