The 2211 Daily

MEETING THE CHALLENGE THROUGH CONTINUITY

Two riders in the 250 class. Roberto Locatelli and Marco Simoncelli, two top names for an all-Italian challenge. The Metis Gilera Racing Team comes to the starting line of the 2007 world motorcycling championship with an exciting project whose keyword is continuity. Once again, the colours on the Gilera bikes belong to Metis, a leading employment agency, now in its fifth consecutive year at Gilera�s side in the Moto GP World Championship: the most compelling challenge in competitive motorcycling.

Milan, 14 February 2007 � A year ago, after an absence of 13 years, Gilera made its return to the 250 class of the Moto GP World Championship. Twelve months on, the Metis Gilera Team is taking up the challenge again�and doubling the stakes. Last year�s rider, Marco Simoncelli, has been confirmed and is joined by Roberto Locatelli, the 2000 125cc world champion. From the sponsor to the bike to the two riders, this is an all-Italian motorcycling team. As the challenge unfolds, the focus of attention will be on the two riders: Simoncelli and Locatelli are entrusted with the task of establishing a new racing tradition for Gilera, a distinguished name that has written many important chapters in competitive motorcycling and been coupled with the victories of champions of the prestige of Umberto Masetti, Libero Liberati, Geoff Duke and, more recently, Manuel Poggiali.

�The team we are presenting today really is a national team,� said Daniele Bandiera, Piaggio Group VP Operations. �Two powerful Italian drivers on a bike that is the very essence of Italian competitive motorcycling. The Metis Gilera Racing Team is a strong team that we hope will appeal to Italian motorcycling enthusiasts.

�Gilera comes to the 2007 Moto GP World Championship with the intention of leading the field. This is our seventh consecutive season and the most powerful sign of our commitment to the sporting soul of this great name. Obviously we expect important results from this strong riding duo and a bike with the name of one of the aristocrats of world motorcycling, a name the whole world envies us.
�We take great pride in bringing Gilera back to these heights, in a season when the two-ring symbol will also be seen on a series of revolutionary products on the market.�

The Metis Gilera Racing Team is part of the Piaggio Group Sports Division, headed by Giampiero Sacchi and Technical Director Gigi Dall�Igna (Technical Director of the group�s motor racing operations).

�With two riders competing in the 250 category, our programme is a clear reflection of the importance of this all-Italian challenge for us,� said Giampiero Sacchi, head of the Piaggio Group racing operations. �The key is continuity. Marco Simoncelli has been joined by Roberto Locatelli, whose experience will be a powerful asset in securing results matching our reputation as a constructor and the prestige of all the companies backing us on this project.�

2007 is the fifth consecutive racing season for Metis S.p.A., the personnel selection and management agency supporting Gilera in the world�s most prestigious motorcycling showcase. �We are proud to be at the Piaggio Group�s side on the Gilera bike for the fifth year running,� said Piermario Donadoni, Chief Executive Officer of Metis S.p.A., the main Team sponsor. �This long-term partnership confirms Metis� firm belief in Piaggio�s plans to bring the great motorcycling name of Gilera back to the podium. Metis and Gilera also share common roots as Italian companies. Metis S.p.A. is an all-Italian employment agency that has won a place on a market dominated by the multinationals and is now drawing up plans for European expansion. So our involvement in the Moto GP World Championship also has this symbolic value, represented by the Italian flag on the bikes and the riders� overalls.�

ROBERTO LOCATELLI
Rider no. 15
Roberto Locatelli, 32, is a highly experienced rider. He began his racing career in motocross, a natural choice for a native of the province of Bergamo, an area with a long and distinguished tradition in the sport. 1989 saw Locatelli�s debut in the 50cc Italian Enduro Cadets Championship, a series he won the following year. In 1991, he repeated his feat in the 80cc category, and also took part in the European Championship and the Six Days. By the end of the 1991 season, he had decided to switch to road racing. He competed in the 1992 Sport Production Championship, winning the title in 1993 when he took first place in 10 of the 12 races. His success led to his promotion by the Italian Motorcycling Federation, which named him to the Italian Team for the European Championship in the 125cc class. During the season, for which he won third place, Locatelli had the great satisfaction of beating Japan�s Noboru Ueda to pole position at the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello, when he competed as a wild card rider. He made his Moto GP World Championship debut in 1995, with two uneventful seasons in the 250cc class, where his personal best was sixth place in the 1996 Brazilian Grand Prix. Locatelli returned to the 125cc category to �re-build� his career. The eighth place in the 1997 world championship earned him the �Rookie of the Year� title, validating his decision to move back to this class. In 1998 he made his first podium, at the German Grand Prix, and scored his first victories the following season. In just two weeks, he won the French and the Italian Grand Prix, and finished fourth at the end of the season. 2000 brought him the World Champion title, at the Pacific Grand Prix in Motegi, Japan, with a score of 230 points after a long and cleanly fought battle with rival Youichi Ui. Over the next few seasons, from 2001 to 2004, Locatelli alternated between the 250cc and the 125cc categories, moving definitively to the 250cc after a change in the regulations closed the 125cc championship to riders over the age of 28. His entry into an �official team� is unquestionably a fitting tribute for a competitor who, on the track, has always displayed steadfast guts and determination even in the toughest races.

�Joining an official team is a dream come true for a rider,� Roberto admits. �You feel part of a project and you realise the responsibility this places on you. Hopefully, my experience will help the companies we represent achieve the victories they deserve in this new adventure.�

• No. Grand Prix: 179 (94 in 125 and 85 in 250)
• First Grand Prix: ITALIAN GP � Mugello 2 July 1994
• First Pole Position: ITALIAN GP � Mugello 2 July 1994
• First Fast Lap: BRITISH GP � Donington Park 4 July 1999
• First World Podium: GERMAN GP � Sachsenring 19 July 1998
• First World Victory: FRENCH GP � Le Castellet 23 May 1999
• World Championship Titles: 125cc 2000
• Total Victories: 9
• Total Podiums: 24
• Total Pole Positions: 18
• Front Row Starts: 58 (39 in 125 and 19 in 250)
• Total Placings: 125 (62 in 125 and 63 in 250)

MARCO SIMONCELLI
Rider no. 58
Marco Simoncelli, 19, was born in Italy�s Romagna region. �Superpippo� to his friends, he is one of the most popular riders in the Moto GP World Championship. A sportsman who never spares himself, Marco is admired for his skill and extrovert nature in every situation. His riding career began at the age of seven, on a minibike. In 1999 and 2000 he achieved victory as the Italian minibike champion, and was runner-up in the European championships. At 14, he moved to 125cc Grand Prix bikes. In 2002, he won the European 125cc title, and made his World Championship debut as a wild card rider at the Czech Grand Prix in Brno, finishing thirteenth. 2003 was his first full World Championship season, and the first successes came the following year. Pole position and first place at Jerez, and pole position at the Czech Grand Prix, on a water-logged track. 2005 was his best GP World season, when he came fifth, before changing class last year. The move to 250cc was accompanied by continual improvements in Marco�s performance, leading to a third place in the front row at the start of the Portuguese Grand Prix; Gilera�s best trial result to date.

�My first 250 season was a period of apprenticeship. We encountered problems, but even so it was a positive year,� says Marco. �We continued to improve throughout the championship, even though we missed the final goal, the place on the winners� podium we were all expecting. Embarking on this new adventure today, I am confident of turning in a good performance. I can offer my experience and an overriding desire to show what I can achieve.�

• No. Grand Prix: 66 (50 in 125 and 16 in 250)
• First Grand Prix: CZECH GP � 25 August 2002
• First Pole Position: SPANISH GP � Jerez de la Frontera 2 May 2004
• First Fast Lap: QATAR GP � Doha 1 October 2005
• First World Podium: SPANISH GP � Jerez de la Frontera 2 May 2004
• First World Victory: SPANISH GP � Jerez de la Frontera 2 May 2004
• World Championship Titles: none
• Total Victories: 2
• Total Podiums: 7
• Total Pole Positions: 3
• Front Row Starts: 17 (16 in 125 and 1 in 250)
• Total Placings: 39 (27 in 125 and 12 in 250)

GIAMPIERO SACCHI
Piaggio Group VP Racing
Giampiero Sacchi, 50, was born in Terni; he is married and has two children. He first became involved in the Moto GP World Championship in the early 1980s, working in management and PR. Today he is Piaggio Group VP for Racing. In 1990 and 1991 he was at the side of Loris Capirossi when the Imola champion won the 125cc world title. A success Sacchi duplicated as personal manager to Max Biaggi in 1994 and 1995 when the Rome-born rider won his first two world championship titles. From 1996 to 1998, Sacchi ran his own team, Scuderia Carrizosa, which competed in the 125 and 250cc world championships. In three seasons, Scuderia Carrizossa won three heats in the European Championship, the IRTA Cup with rider Luca Boscoscuro, 12 World Championship races and took a very young Valentino Rossi to his first title (125cc) in 1997. Sacchi has been General Manager of Derbi Racing since 1999. The rider chosen for the historic Spanish constructor�s return to racing was Japan�s Youchi Ui, who took third place in the Australian Grand Prix and was runner-up in the 2000 and 2001 championships, winning eleven races and gaining a place on the podium in a further eight races. In 2001, with Derbi�s entry into the Piaggio Group, Sacchi oversaw the return to racing of another famous name: Gilera.

Gilera�s revival has special meaning for Sacchi, who was Chairman of the Terni Motorbike Club named after Libero Liberati, the Terni-born rider who won the 1957 500cc world title on a four-cylinder Gilera. Two splendid years saw Manuel Poggiali crowned world champion in 2001 and runner-up in 2002, the season that brought the Team Italia Gilera bikes on to the track. 2003 was a difficult transition period as DRD, the racing division based in Martorelles (Spain), concentrated on taking Derbi and Gilera, the Piaggio Group�s racing brands, into the 125cc world championship. Nevertheless, the growth of youngster Jorge Lorenzo (another Sacchi discovery) on a Derbi, culminating in victory at the Brazil GP, built up the team�s hopes for 2004: hopes that were fulfilled when Lorenzo won three Grand Prix and seven places on the podium, a contender for the title right up to the last race. The challenge for 2005 was to re-establish Manuel Poggiali in the 125cc, on a Gilera. Together with Lukas Pesek, Manuel Poggiali had a spectacular season, while the young Czech, also discovered by Sacchi, proved to be one of the fastest riders in the category. 2006 saw Sacchi heading the Aprilia Racing Division in Noale: a formidable challenge, as the numbers show. Around 70 per cent of the bikes on the 125 and 250cc starting grids carried the colours of Piaggio Group brands, while Gilera made a return to the 250cc category after 13 years.

Courtesy of Piaggio & C. S.p.A.

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