HIROSHI AOYAMA

PERSONAL DETAILS

NAME:	HIROSHI AOYAMA
TEAM:
NATIONALITY:	JAPANESE
DATE OF BIRTH:	25 OCTOBER 1981
MARRIED:	SINGLE

END OF 2009

WINS:

9 9 (250)

POLES:

8 (8 (250))

FASTEST LAPS:

11 (11 (250))

DEBUT:	QATAR 2010
DRIVEN FOR:	INTERWETTEN HONDA (2010)

CAREER

Hiroshi ‘Hiro’ Aoyama enters his rookie MotoGP season after winning the final 250cc World Championship in 2009. The likable Japanese ace won Honda’s 16th 250 title on his Scot Honda RS250RW by mixing consistency with bursts of brilliance. Having conquered the lower categories, Aoyama will make his debut in the MotoGP class in 2010 as one of six Honda riders.

The older of one of Japan’s most famous racing sibling duos, Aoyama was five-years-old when his father took him and his brother Shuhei to a local “pocket bike” race in Chiba, Japan. That was the beginning of Hiro’s 23-year love affair with two wheels. It would be nine years before he started racing, but success came quickly. Hiro won the Kanto District Minibike titles in 1996 and ’97, then moved to 125’s and 250’s the following year.

An ascendant five year career in Japan, all contested on Hondas, culminated in the 2003 250 All Japan Championship for Team HARC Pro. That success would propel him to the 250 World Championship as a Honda “Scholarship Rider” alongside Dani Pedrosa on the Telefonica Movistar team. Hiro finished sixth his first year, with two podiums, then fourth the following year, the highlight being a win in his home GP at Twin Ring Motegi. A switch to KTM’s for three years ended when KTM pulled out of racing and he happily returned to the Honda family in 2009 for the 250 championship’s final year.

Aoyama had a laser-like focus on the 2009 title, the Japanese rider scoring points in all 16 races. There were four wins, the first coming in the third race of the year in Spain, and two seconds. His worst finish was an eighth, which he only scored once.

The title came down to the final race in Valencia with 2008 World Champion Marco Simoncelli the only rider with the mathematical chance of beating Aoyama for the crown. If he was to do it, Simoncelli had to win the race, with Aoyama finishing lower than 11th.

It seemed unlikely, but on the 10th of 27 laps, Simoncelli was leading and Aoyama was third when the Japanese rider ran off the track, dropping to 11th. As Aoyama was working his way back to the front, Simoncelli crashed with seven laps to go, effectively handing the title to the deserving Scot Honda rider. When the points were tallied up he’d won the title by almost a full grand prix, 22 points.

Now comes the biggest challenge of his professional life. In 2010, Hiro enters his rookie MotoGP season on the Interwetten Honda MotoGP Team, a Swiss-owned squad whose race shop is in Prague, the Czech Republic. The challenge for Aoyama is adapting to the traction control and electronics, which were never a part of his formative racing years, but which play an increasingly larger role in MotoGP. Team Technical Director Tom Jojic finds Aoyama to be “a very ambitious and strong rider with a very complex technical ability.”.

During the MotoGP season, the introspective Japanese rider leads a quiet life in Barcelona, Spain where he trains by riding motocross and dirt track. He is also an accomplished cook, which helps him maintain peak fitness during the season.

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