Mika Kallio

Kallio on Ducati at the 2009 Italian Grand Prix

Mika Kallios 125cc KTM

Mika Kallio (born November 8, 1982 in Valkeakoski ) is a Finnish motorcycle racer .

His greatest success so far is the vice world championship in the 125 cc class in 2005 and 2006 on KTM and in the Moto2 class in 2014 on Kalex . His starting number has been 36 for several years.

Career

According to his own statement, Mika Kallio only started motorcycle racing at the age of 14. In 1997 he finished second in the RR-B125 cc class of the Finnish championship, and he was also second in the Finnish ice speedway championship. The following year he reached third place in the Finnish road championship and in iceracing. In 1999 he won his first title. He became a Finnish road champion. He also managed a second place in the Nordic championship in the RR 125 cc class. In 2000, Kallio was able to win this championship. He also repeated his titles in the Finnish road championship and in iceracing.

In 2001 he entered the International German Motorcycle Championship (IDM) and immediately finished fifth in the final ranking. He also made his debut in the 125 cc class of the motorcycle road world championship at the German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring .

In 2002 Mika Kallio competed in his first full season in the 125 cc World Championship on a Honda in the Ajo Motorsport team and finished eleventh overall. This achievement was honored by the sports press with the title Rookie of the Year in the 125 cc class.

In the 2003 season he was able to repeat his eleventh place in the overall standings. His switch from Honda to the newcomer KTM during the season caused a sensation , where he replaced last year's hapless world champion, Arnaud Vincent , and greatly improved the manufacturer's results, which had been below expectations. At the third to last race of the season, the Malaysian Grand Prix , Kallio even achieved his first podium with second place.

The 2004 season , however, was not so successful for Mika Kallio, he often had to struggle with chassis problems on his KTM and with tenth place in the overall classification fell short of expectations. In iceracing, however, he was again champion of his home country in the 125 cm³ and 500 cm³ class.

The 2005 season was the most successful in the Finn's career to date. At the second round of the season, the Portuguese Grand Prix in Estoril , he achieved his first victory for KTM. There are three more victories, a total of ten podium places and eight pole positions . After an exciting duel with the Swiss Thomas Lüthi , Mika Kallio was finally runner-up in the 125 cm³ class, five points behind. At KTM, however, they could not really be happy about this success, because the second rider, the Hungarian Gábor Talmácsi , Kallio at the Grand Prix of Qatar , against the stable order , snatched the victory from under his nose and lost important championship points for the Finn had brought. In addition, Mika Kallio lost other important points in several self-inflicted falls. Nevertheless, he was named "Qualifyer of the year 125 cc" and won the Finnish 125 cc Iceracing Championship.

In the 2006 season , Mika Kallio succeeded in repeating his runner-up title. This time he had to admit defeat to the outstanding driver of the season, the Spaniard Álvaro Bautista . Although Kallio drove much more consistently than in 2005 and had no failures to complain about due to driving errors, he lost the world title significantly, 76 points behind the Bautista, who also won the championship because of his Aprilia , which was superior to the KTM this year . Nevertheless, Kallio's season record with three wins, seven second and one third place was again worthy of note. In Finland he was voted “Racer of the year” for the second time in a row in a vote by the public broadcaster YLE and the motorsport show Ruutulippu . One in three nominated Kallio, who prevailed against Formula 1 driver Kimi Räikkönen .

The 2007 season and the 2008 season is Kallio together with the Japanese Hiroshi Aoyama dispute as KTM factory riders in the 250 cc class. In 2007 he won two races and finished seventh, in 2008 he improved to third and won three races. In 2007 he was still slightly inferior to Aoyama, in 2008 he was able to clearly beat him.

In 2009 he was promoted to the MotoGP class for Pramac Racing . It didn't go as hoped and he finished 15th with three eighth places. In 2010 things went even worse and he finished 17th.

In 2011 he returned to the 250 cc class for Suter and the Marc VDS Racing Team , which had meanwhile become the Moto2 class. In the last race he finished second, but before that he had missed the points nine times and was only 16th, and he had not achieved another top 5 result.

In 2012 , after switching to Kalex , he also managed only one podium place (a second place at the German Grand Prix ), but this time he reached the top ten 13 times and thus improved to sixth place overall.

In 2013 he won the Czech Grand Prix and was fourth overall.

He has been racing for KTM in MotoGP since the 2016 season .

Statistics in the motorcycle world championship

(Status: end of season 2019)

season	class	motorcycle	run	Victories	Podiums	Poles	Points	Result
2001	125 cc	Honda	2	-	-	-	-	-
2002	125 cc	Honda	16	-	-	-	78	11.
2003	125 cc	KTM	16	-	1	-	88	11.
2004	125 cc	KTM	16	-	1	-	86	10.
2005	125 cc	KTM	16	4th	10	8th	237	2.
2006	125 cc	KTM	16	3	11	4th	262	2.
2007	250 cc	KTM	17th	2	4th	2	157	7th
2008	250 cc	KTM	16	3	6th	-	196	3.
2009	MotoGP	Ducati	16	-	-	-	71	15th
2010	MotoGP	Ducati	16	-	-	-	43	17th
2011	Moto2	Suter	16	-	1	-	61	16.
2012	Moto2	Kalex	17th	-	1	-	130	6th
2013	Moto2	Kalex	17th	1	4th	1	188	4th
2014	Moto2	Kalex	18th	3	10	3	289	2.
2015	Moto2	Kalex	13	-	-	-	72	15th
		Speed ​​up	5	-	-	-
2016	MotoGP	KTM	1	-	-	-	-	28.
2017	MotoGP	KTM	4th	-	-	-	11	24.
2018	MotoGP	KTM	2	-	-	-	6th	25th
2019	MotoGP	KTM	6th	-	-	-	7th	26th
total			246	16	49	18th	1982

Web links

Commons : Mika Kallio  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website (English / Finnish)
• Mika Kallio on the official website of the Motorcycle World Championship (English).