Alex de Angelis

Alex de Angelis (born February 26, 1984 in Rimini) is a Grand Prix motorcycle road racer from San Marino.

Alex made his debut at world championship level in 1999 in the 125 cc class; his first full season was in 2000, when his best results were two sixth places. He rode a total of four full seasons in the 125cc category. His best season in the 125 class came in 2003 when he claimed six podium finishes and finished second to Dani Pedrosa, despite not recording any wins.

He moved to the 250cc category in 2004, when he scored two podiums and was fifth overall. Next year he had four podiums and was seventh overall. 2006 turned out to be real breakthrough, as he finished third in the championship. He took his first victory at the season finale in Valencia, after over 20 podiums beforehand. In 2007 he finished 3rd overall with 235 points and eight podiums, including four successive second places midseason. He finished on the podium at the Sachsenring every year between 2002 and 2007.

For 2008 he moved to the MotoGP class, riding for Gresini Honda. At Mugello he was fastest in the warmup, and impressed on race day to finish 4th. He also came fourth at the Sachsenring, and consistently scored minor points for the rest of the season.

He stayed at Gresini for 2009 after an impressive rookie year. However, he left the team for 2010 as he and his teammate Toni Elias were replaced with Marco Melandri and Marco Simoncelli. Instead, he signed a deal to partner Niccolò Canepa at Team Scot in the first season of the new Moto2 class.

After replacing the injured Hiroshi Aoyama for three races in MotoGP, de Angelis returned to Moto2 at the San Marino Grand Prix in Misano. During this race he was involved in an accident which resulted in the death of Japanese rider Shoya Tomizawa. After Tomizawa fell from his bike on the twelfth lap of the race, he was immediately hit by de Angelis and Scott Redding, who were unable to avoid him. De Angelis avoided major injury and was able to walk away from the accident.

Famous quotes containing the word alex:

    My smiling child
    Named for a noble ancestor
    Great hunter or warrior
    You will be one day.
    Which will give your papa pride
    But always I will remember you thus.
    —African Lullaby. As quoted in Roots, by Alex Haley (1976)