On March 25th, Round 1 of the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup 2007 gets under way at Jerez de la Frontera in Spain: The biggest talent search in motorcyle racing history will start its first race. Originally, after the Selection Event at the “Circuit de la Comunitat Valenciana Ricardo Tormo” on 28 August 2006, the best twenty riders were selected and nominated for the Rookies Cup.
Under the auspices of Spanish motorcycling legend Alberto Puig and KTM’s Race Director Harald Bartol, several additional reserve riders were chosen and also invited to further test sessions, run at Adria Raceway in Italy at the end of October, where the talent scouts were positively surprised, so that the level of performance, but also the quality of the young riders led to a change of mind.
In a “3 plus” programme, three additional riders were selected for the Rookies Cup 2007, so now a total of 23 riders from ten nations will participate in the biggest talent search in international motorcyle racing so far, powered by Dorna and Red Bull.
These young talents come from Germany, Italy, Norway, Great Britain, the USA, the Czech Republic, France, Sweden, Hungary and Spain. Over the past two weeks three further test sessions were held at Jerez and Valencia to prime the 23 riders for the start of the season at the end of March (see list). Several riders were already able to put themselves in the limelight as possible podium contenders – e.g. American Cameron Beaubier, Johann Zarco (FRA), Lorenzo Savadori (ITA), Jamie Mossey (GB) and Cristian Trabalon Laso (ESP) among others.
The sole lady in the field, Lucy Gloeckner from Germany, ran consistently in the top eight.
Harald Bartol: “It was a pleasant problem for us to suddenly have 23 almost level young riders at our disposal. We wanted to guarantee the highest quality possible and therefore decided to expand our Cup accordingly! The fact that ten riders should be good for podium positions is especially gratifying.”
The seven races of the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup 2007: 25 March 2007 Jerez/ESP
2 June 2007 Mugello/ITA
24 June 2007 Donington/GB
30 June 2007 Assen/NL
15 July 2007 Sachsenring/GER
19 Aug 2007 Brno/CZ
4 Nov 2007 Valencia/ESP
Photography by GEPA.
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