Alonso joins South American legends Lavado and Cecotto

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The mighty impressive David Alonso (CFMoto Aspar Team) was awarded membership to a very exclusive South American club on Sunday. The 18-year-old Colombian joined legends Carlos Lavado and Johnny Cecotto as the only South American riders to win a world title in the 75-year history of Grand Prix racing. The CFMoto rider’s tenth win of the season in Japan brought him the Moto3™ world title with four rounds remaining. It is only the fourth South American World title, and it has been a long time coming after two Venezuelan riders won their world titles.

The bubbly Carlos Lavado won the last of his two 250cc titles in 1986, three years after his first. The Yamaha rider won 17 Grands Prix after finishing second at his home GP at San Carlos in 1978. Lavado also won two 350cc Grands Prix in South America, a famous home win at the 1979 Venezuelan Grand Prix and three years later in Argentina. Fellow countryman Cecotto won the 350cc world title in 1975. He won nine Grands Prix before moving onto the 500cc class. He won three premier class GPs and was third in the 1978 World Championship. That is the highest finish in the premier class by a South American rider. When Cecotto retired from two wheels he went on to a highly successful car racing career.

Brazilian Alex Barros rode in 245 premier class Grands Prix and finished fourth in the World Championship on four separate occasions. He won seven Grands Prix starting at Jarama in 1993 riding the 500cc Suzuki, finishing at Estoril in 2005 riding the RCV 211 V Honda four-stroke machine. Motegi reminded me of Barros’s first ride on the V-5 Honda four-stroke when he beat Valentino Rossi in 2002. He repeated that victory with another at that final round in Valencia the same year.

At the very opposite end of the time scale, I also remember as a teenager following the exploits of Argentinian Benedicto Caldarella in the sixties. He had the audacity to lead my hero Mike Hailwood in the first American Grand Prix at Daytona riding the 500cc Gilera in 1964. Two years earlier he won the Argentinian Grand Prix in Buenos Aires. Many of the European stars did not travel to South America and Caldarella riding a Matchless was a comfortable winner, lapping the fourth-placed rider five times. Caldarella finished second behind Hailwood in the 1964 Nations Grand Prix in Monza bringing Gilera their last 500cc podium.

Argentinian Sebastian Porto was unlucky to come up against the rising star Dani Pedrosa in the 2004 250cc World Championship. He eventually finished second in the title race to Pedrosa who had won the 125cc world title the previous year. Porto won five Grands Prix that season after his first World Championship win the previous year in Rio. Venezuelan Ivan Palazzese finished third in the 1982 125cc World Championship after wins in Finland and Sweden. He stepped up to the 250cc class but tragically lost his life in a first lap crash at Hockenheim in 1989.

So, what lies in the future for Alonso who already has written plenty of pages in the history books. He is the first Colombian rider to win a world title and was the first Colombian to stand on the top step of the podium at Silverstone in 2023. Alonso has now won 14 Moto3™ Grands Prix, which is more than any other rider. That vibrant South American continent would certainly know how to celebrate their very first MotoGP™ World Champion. There is a long way to go but Alonso has got the party rolling.

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