Hitting the Apex Page #2

of dirt-track races there.

He once won 32 in a single weekend.

That's a very easy win

in event number five.

1999, Italy.

12-year-old Marco Simoncelli wins

the national Minimoto championship.

The same competition

Rossi started his career in.

2000, Casey Stoner's family takes

all their savings and moves to Europe.

Racing on asphalt for the first time,

Stoner finds himself up against

the fastest rider he's ever seen.

Dani Pedrosa,

from Sabadell near Barcelona.

Ten years later, the new generation

are all on the grid with Rossi.

Almost all of them, that is.

There's another very fast one coming

none of them know about yet.

1997, Cervera, Spain.

Marc Marquez gets

a motorcycle for Christmas.

He is three years old.

Casey Stoner stunned Valentino Rossi

and everybody else in 2007,

his second year in MotoGP.

The Australian didn't just beat Rossi

to the world title that year,

he wiped the floor with him,

taking ten victories

to the Italian's four.

Yamaha then signed Jorge Lorenzo

as their second rider for 2008.

It was a statement.

Rossi was the past.

Lorenzo was the future.

In 2010, the 23-year-old

rode a perfect season.

He finished every race,

took nine wins and seven podiums

and scored more points

than anybody in history.

I saw it when he was five.

It was impressive how he could ride

beyond logic,

beyond the laws of physics almost.

When you see that in a child

you know there is great potential

to go very far in this sport.

He had it and other things besides.

He's very stubborn.

He's very hard-working.

He sticks at thngs

until he achieves them.

He's a non-conformist.

A perfectionist.

And of all that together

with the right circumstances

has enabled him

to reach the level he's now at.

Dani Pedrosa excelled

on the smaller bikes,

winning three titles.

In MotoGP, the diminutive Spaniard

finished second to Stoner in 2007

and second again to Lorenzo in 2010,

pushing Rossi down to third

in the championship standings.

With Valentino Rossi in

apparent decline at the age of 31,

Italy is looking for a new MotoGP hero.

Enter Marco Simoncelli.

I took him to ride mini bikes.

I didn't take him to piano classes.

He loved it. It was easy.

The first race, he fell three times.

He didn't win.

But he learned fast.

All of them, I've seen all his races.

Little by little, with difficulty,

with many concerns,

we got where he wanted to be.

From his determination

and the way he rode

we always knew he would be great.

Me and his mum.

Racing

in the intermediate class,

Simoncelli took six victories in 2008

and clinched the world title

in the tropical heat of Malaysia.

Marco, how does that sound,

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