Paolo Pileri dies

After growing up on the Italian Motocross scene, Pileri made the switch to circuits in 1971 and then made his world championship debut on a 125cc DRS in 1973.

Less than two years had passed before he achieved his first victory in the championship – the Spanish Grand Prix of 1975 – and after that he simply ran away with things, winning seven races in a row on his Morbidelli and easily landing the world title.

He never hit the heights of title success again, probably because he seemed intent on racing in 125s, 250s and 350s all at the same time rather than focusing on one class.

Later on his career, he took one 250cc victory in the 1978 Belgian Grand Prix and, in all, won eight times and took 20 podium finishes from his 33 starts before he quit racing at the age of 35.

He turned to team management following his retirement, and ran Loris Capirossi to successive 125cc titles in 1990 and 1991 on a Marlboro Pileri Honda, and was the first team manager to give a 14-year-old Valentino Rossi a try-out on a 125 bike in 1993.

Pileri is the second world champion to die recentely. 1949 250cc world champion Bruno Ruffo also passed away last week.