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.
Read more about this topic: Gregorio Lavilla
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