Mika Kallio benefits from rivals' last-lap crash to win Spanish GP

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Mika Kallio (Red Bull KTM) did his hopes of taking this year’s 250cc Road Racing World Championship a power of good on Sunday, with victory in the Spanish Grand Prix on the Jerez circuit.
      The Finnish rider, who started from second place on the grid, was looking at a podium finish in 3rd place on the closing lap, when Spain’s Alvaro Bautista (Aprilia) and Italian Marco Simoncelli (Gilera) collided and slid off the track while duelling for victory, and Kallio was left out in front to take the chequered flag alone.
     
Kallio briefly led the field shortly after the start, but Bautista and Simoncelli swept past and dominated proceedings until their untimely spill, which was apparently not a case of pilot error - Bautista’s engine seized up and Simoncelli ran into the back of him.
      Kallio’s good fortune did not end there, either. He was engaged for several laps in a dogfight for third and fourth places with old rival Thomas Lüthi of Switzerland. However, Lüthi overcooked things on a curve four laps from the finish and crashed out on his Aprilia, leaving Kallio with nobody around to press him.
      Kallio’s bike did not perform as well in the race proper as it had in qualifying or the pre-race warm-up session, where he was the fastest man on the track.
      Problems with the grip on his rear tyre hampered the Finn’s progress, and he rapidly recognised that he had no chance of keeping pace with either Bautista or Simoncelli - at least until their bikes touched and they found themselves on the deck.
     
The win is Kallio’s 3rd GP triumph at 250cc, after two victories in his rookie season in this class last year.
      Since he won the final race of the 2007 season in Valencia and was third at the Qatar Grand Prix in Doha earlier this month, Kallio is enjoying a good run.
      The twenty-five points for his win put Kallio into second place in the riders’ table, with 41 points, four behind the Doha winner, Italian Mattia Pasini (Aprilia). Pasini also benefited from the crashes in front of him to finish second in Jerez. He was just over four seconds behind Kallio at the line, and third place went to the Honda rider Yuki Takahashi.
     
The next event of the 17-race season will be the Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril on the weekend of 11th-13th April.
      In his rookie season in this class, Mika Kallio finished 7th overall last year. The 25-year-old from Valkeakoski was runner-up in the 125cc class in 2005 and 2006, losing out first to Thomas Lüthi and then to Alvaro Bautista.
      Thus far, only one Finnish rider - the late Jarno Saarinen - has managed to capture a Road Racing World Championship title. Saarinen carried it off in the 250cc category in 1972, but died tragically at Monza a year later.


Links:
  Mika Kallio Official Site
  Mika Kallio (Wikipedia)
  Moto GP

Helsingin Sanomat