The San Marino and Rimini Coast‘s motorcycle Grand Prix, which is the 13th round of the 2018 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, will take place at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli on September 9th, when Valentino Rossi will have the chance to win his 4th on that track. After eleven rounds of the championship (with the 12th canceled for heavy rain), Marc Márquez holds the championship lead, while Jorge Lorenzo is in third. The Italian racer Valentino Rossi on his Yamaha has not won any race yet, but he arrived third in four races, and, with his 142 points, he currently stands at the second position of the championship.
Despite its name, the San Marino and Rimini Coast’s MotoGP, the race has always taken place in Italy, but because there is already an Italian motorcycle Grand Prix, it was called the San Marino Grand Prix because the track is located in Misano Adriatico (Rimini), near the enclaved micro-state. Originally designed in 1969, the Misano World Circuit underwent significant modifications in 1993 and in 2006. The following year it hosted the 2007 San Marino and Rimini Coast Grand Prix, which was won by Ducati. On 3 November 2011, it was announced that the circuit would be named after the 32-year-old motorcycle racer Marco Simoncelli, born in nearby Cattolica (Rimini), who died during the Shell Advance Malaysian Grand Prix the previous week.
Valentino Rossi (1979) is also from the same area and, in two days time, he will have to drive only 20 minutes from his home in Tavullia to the circuit entitled to his close friend to run for the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team. Rossi, considered to be one of the most successful motorcycle racers of all time, with 7 MotoGP Championships to his name and the first MotoGP rider to accumulate over 5,000 championship points throughout a career, has already won in Misano in 2008, 2009, and 2014. Hopefully, his first victory in this year championship will coincide with his fourth victory in his ‘home-circuit’.
Ilona Catani Scarlett