Loris Capirossi exiting grand stage

A remarkable year, 1990: Nelson Mandela was set free, Germany was reunified, the first Gulf War began, while in sporting terms the champions of Australia included Ivan Lendl and Steffi Graf, Collingwood Football Club and a horse called Kingston Rule. And then there was Loris Capirossi...

Injury permitting, ‘Capirex’, as he has long been nicknamed, will ride for the last time at the Phillip Island circuit where he sealed his first world championship in the 125cc category way back on September 16, 1990. At just 17 years and 165 days, Capirossi’s Island victory made him – in his debut year as a Grand Prix rider – the youngest-ever 125cc world champion. He still is.

Now in his 22nd season, the diminutive Loris, born in Bologna on April 4, 1973, has decided that it will also be his last. Fittingly he announced that decision in his home country at the Misano round just a few weeks ago.

“It’s an important moment in my career and the decision I made has come about after a lot of reflection,” he admitted as he fought to hold back tears. “I’m happy that after 25 years, of which 22 were in the world championship, I’m at a point where I can still have a smile on my lips as I part ways, even if it’s difficult to think that I won’t be riding a bike next year.”

Capirossi’s road racing debut came in 1987 at the tender age of 14 going on 15, and a short career in Italian and then European competition projected him into the world championship with AGV Pileri Corse on a Honda in 1990.

It took him all of three races to make the podium for the first time – coincidentally, at Misano – and by his 10th appearance, at that year’s British Grand Prix at Donington Park, Loris Capirossi was a Grand Prix winner. Further victories in Hungary and here at Phillip Island earned him the first of his three world titles.

The second came just a year later when he successfully defended his 125cc crown, this time winning five races before graduating, still with Team Pileri and a privateer Honda, to the quarter-litre class for 1992.

Twelfth in that debut season, he scored his first 250cc win at ‘The Cathedral’, Assen in the Netherlands, the following year en route to second place overall. Capirossi actually led the title chase going into the final round at Jarama in Spain, planted the bike on pole but then suffered tyre problems which meant the race win and the crown both went to Yamaha’s Tetsuya Harada. Remember that name...

When Max Biaggi’s late-season charge proved irresistible in 1994, Capirossi decided he had had enough of quarter-litre racing and opted for a move to the elite class, which was then still 500cc, with Pileri and again on a Honda.

Sixth overall, he switched to a Rainey Yamaha for 1996, the season that brought Capirossi his maiden success in the senior class. It came in Australia, but at Eastern Creek (Ed: the same race where Alex Criville cannoned into Mick Doohan on the final lap while they were battling for the lead) before the race returned to what many consider to be its spiritual Island home.

Sixteenth and 10th in his two 500cc campaigns, Loris then allowed himself to be coaxed back to the 250’s in 1997, this time on an Italian Aprilia machine. A merely average year led to a triumphant 1998 – and a date with controversy that has never really faded from the Capirossi CV.

It came at the final round of the season in Argentina, and it involved Harada. The ex-Yamaha man was now Capirossi’s teammate at Aprilia, and after a superb season in which he outscored Capirossi with five race wins to two the Japanese rider held a 4pt advantage going into that 14th and final round.

Last lap, last corner, last chance: a desperate Capirossi lunged up the inside as Harada turned in, the collision came – and only the Italian stayed upright. While Valentino Rossi won, Capirossi was disqualified from second place, only to be subsequently reinstated – and crowned world champion for the third time.

By the end of his final 250cc season in 1999 Capirossi had gone past the 1500 landmark in career points and was now ready for the ultimate test, unfortunately his year-old NSR wasn’t. Seventh place overall with a Mugello victory was no mean feat for Capirossi’s first year back in the 500cc class.

The following year he struggled manfully and was on the podium nine times, though never on the top step, and when his two-stroke machine was outclassed by the new era’s four-stroke fliers in 2002 it was time for bigger and better things.

They don’t come much bigger or better for an Italian rider than Ducati, whose much-trumpeted campaign with its new V-four Capirossi headed up in 2003. On pole for round three at Jerez, Capirossi claimed the Big Red Bike’s first Grand Prix victory three races later at Spain’s other venue in Barcelona.

Sadly the Superbike supremacy shown by Ducati took time to materialise on the GP tracks, but by the second half of 2005 Loris was back on song. A Brno podium was followed by race wins in Japan and Malaysia; with blistering poles at three circuits on the trot the Italian combo seemed well-nigh unbeatable.

Phillip Island was to prove otherwise. A major crash in practice for the Australian round brought Capirex’s charge to a sudden and painful halt and he finished sixth overall that year. While Loris won the opening race of 2006 from pole, that promise couldn’t quite be sustained, though two further race wins at Brno and Motegi carried him to third, his best performance in the modern era. Little did he know what lay in store for him in `07...

That’s when Ducati turned to a young Australian by the name of Stoner to see if he could bring the best out of its Desmosedici – and could he ever! Casey claimed 10 race wins to teammate Capirossi’s one and took the world title with 367pts – a mere 201 more than the Italian on the other side of the garage.

It was small consolation to Capirossi when Stoner, second in 2008, inflicted similar humiliation on his new teammate Marco Melandri. By then Loris had moved on to Suzuki to see if he might fare better on the GSV-R. No such luck: a solitary podium at Brno in August `08 was the only success Loris had to show in a three-year grind highlighted only by his 300th appearance and the hope of better things to come.

Alas, that was Capirossi’s last podium to date – leaving him stranded on 99 in his world championship career, 42 in the senior category, 37 in the quarter-litre class and 27 in the 125’s. No wonder he made a mock plea to his MotoGP rivals to be nice to him in his last few races as he announced his retirement!

Sadly, the end of his final year has been blighted by another injury to his much-troubled shoulder. “I crashed on my ‘famous’ right shoulder and suffered another dislocation,” he said ruefully after coming off in the Aragon race, an injury that sidelined him for Japan last time out.

Phillip Island, where his record across the classes includes one win, four second places and two thirds, will be Loris Capirossi’s 327th Grand Prix start. At 38, the Pramac Racing man is ready for a break: “I’m sorry that I haven’t brought home good results this year, but I’m confident for the final part of the championship,” he insists.

“Motegi [which he missed], Phillip Island, and Sepang are my favorite tracks, and I’ve won many races there. It will be difficult to get my 100th podium, but I’ll fight to the end. As for my future, I still don’t have clear ideas. The only sure thing is that I won’t be a racer any more...”