Early Years
Lavilla was the Spanish Superbike champion in 1994, and raced in the 250cc Grand Prix World Championship the next year. He was runner-up in Germany's Superbike championship in 1997, on board a Ducati. In 1998 he first raced in the Superbike World Championship full-time, on a private Ducati, taking two outright podiums. He also made a one-off appearance at the German Grand Prix in the 500 cc class riding for the Honda Movistar Team of former rider Sito Pons. He then spent 3 years with Kawasaki's factory superbike team, finishing 8th overall despite experiencing many crashes in 1999 (including five in a row) and finishing 10th overall in 2000 despite missing four rounds through injury, before a stronger 2001, in which he was the second-highest non-wildcard in Race 1 at Sugo.
For 2002 and 2003 he raced a factory Suzuki, doing what he could on a 750cc 4-cylinder bike which lagged behind the 1000cc Ducatis (and Colin Edwards' Honda in 2002), finishing 5th overall in the relatively weak 2003 championship with 19 top-six finishes including seven podiums, although still not taking a race win. Suzuki did not enter a WSBK team in 2004, and Gregorio remained with them as a factory test rider, substituting for Yukio Kagayama in the BSB series once, and doing 4 MotoGP races for the team. He was released at the end of the season, leaving the way clear for his fairytale 2005.
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Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“the cluttered eyes
of early mysterious night.”
—Imamu Amiri Baraka (b. 1934)
“A young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end that is aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)