Hitting the Apex

This is how it begins.

A motorcycle racer and his crew chief

looking for speed.

I'm thinking how to corner well

with my knee to the ground

how the crew chief has explained.

It's difficult.

This is how it begins.

A motorcycle racer and his crew chief.

And his race engineers and his suspension engineer

and his tire engineer and his electronics engineer

and his mechanics,

looking for speed.

From the smallest minimoto track to the fastest grand prix circuit,

from little bikes that cost a few hundred

to MotoGP missiles that cost millions.

From 20-mile-an-hour childhood thrills

to 220-mile-an-hour grand prix battles.

The principle remains the same.

Find the fastest line around the track.

And then figure out how to go faster.

Grand prix motorcycle racing is the process of turning fire into speed.

The combustion of fuel and air in the engine

and the fire in the heart of a rider willing to risk everything to win.

Time is the enemy.

The fractions of a second lost or gained in every corner

which add up to defeat or victory.

And the few years that you have to make it to the top

and try to stay there.

This is what you have to do.

Brake as late as possible.

Stay wide.

Turn.

Hit the apex. Accelerate.

Brake.

Lean... further.

Faster.

Stay on the motorcycle.

Hit the apex. Accelerate.

Stay on the motorcycle.

Crashing... hurts.

It wrecks your bike.

It wrecks your body.

It wrecks your chances.

Stay... on... the bike.

And fight.

Every lap.

Every corner.

Every second.

In 18 races around the world.

Flat out for over 2,000 miles each season.

Fight to the finish.

Fight to the top.

Fight.

This is the story of six fighters.

Six of the fastest motorcycle racers of all time

and of the fates that awaited them at the peak of the sport.

When the speeds had never been higher, the competition more intense

or the talent on the track more brilliant.

It's the story of what is at stake for all of them.

All that can be won.

And all that can be lost, when you go chasing glory

at over 200 miles an hour on a motorcycle.

I love sleep. I love sleeping.

Marco, my helper, wakes me up.

So I take some breakfast.

I just feel that I'm more nervous than on Saturday.

You start feeling the butterflies in your stomach.

I hate this feeling.

You feel more tired. You feel... You are less strong.

Wake up, breakfast, warm up.

Normally I sleep well but that time I will be a little bit nervous.

Sunday morning, the feeling is always the same.

Scary, fear, adrenaline.

Think positive, but also scary to make some mistake.

Together, the worst and the best moment of my life.

Valentino, you're so handsome!

The countdown to the MotoGP race at two o'clock

is punctuated by the roar of the support events...

The junior class at 11.

The intermediate at 12.20.

Then it's time.

There are many things out of your control.

These are the things that make you a bit uncomfortable

in that particular hour before the race.

I enjoy it.

It's great to see my son get to the top.

But you also suffer.

As parents, we are afraid

because it's very dangerous.

The danger's inevitable.

It's motor racing on two wheels at very high speeds.

We're always trying to make it better.

We're working on rider equipment. The airbags inside the leathers.

And then the rules that I apply

to not allow the riders to do things that put them in danger.

The road to the MotoGP world championship

is long, difficult and dangerous.

It must be taken at maximum speed at all times.

The finish line is thousands of miles,

hundreds of races and hundreds of crashes from the start.

Thousands of young riders go racing each year in Europe, Asia and America,

dreaming of a place on the world stage.

Very few of them will get there.

Nobody knows the ferocity of the competition

better than Valentino Rossi.

He's raced in over 300 grand prix since 1996,

won over 100 of them and taken nine world championships.

He made it to MotoGP the way most of them do,

rising through the junior and intermediate classes,

learning the grand prix tracks on 140-mile-an-hour bikes.

Then 170-mile-an-hour bikes

before the move to MotoGP

and over 200 miles an hour.

Year after year, he's fought off wave after wave of challengers.

Over 100 riders have come and gone in his time at the top.

Rossi is the only one left from the MotoGP class of 2000.

From 2001 to 2005, he won five MotoGP championships in a row.

Rossi goes through and there's nothing Biaggi can do about it.

Oh! They touched! He's wide!

Oh, Rossi's pushing him off the track!

Rossi's gonna take victory in the Spanish cup.

He was the undisputed king of the sport.

At the end of the decade he was still fighting, still winning.

One more premier class title and he would equal the all-time record.

One more step to cementing his status

as the greatest motorcycle racer of all time.

But by 2010, Rossi had his hands full.

The men who could beat him had arrived.

If you'd known where to look,

you could have seen them coming for him all along.

1994, Spain.

Seven-year-old Jorge Lorenzo

slips and slides his way around a car park in Mallorca.

Casey Stoner on 166. Keep your eyes on Casey.

1997, Australia.

Twelve-year-old Casey Stoner leads the pack in a dirt-track race.

Casey Stoner 166 with that nice comfortable lead.

He led hundreds of dirt-track races there.

He once won 32 in a single weekend.

That's a very easy win in event number five.

1999, Italy.

12-year-old Marco Simoncelli wins the national Minimoto championship.

The same competition Rossi started his career in.

2000, Casey Stoner's family takes all their savings and moves to Europe.

Racing on asphalt for the first time,

Stoner finds himself up against the fastest rider he's ever seen.

Dani Pedrosa, from Sabadell near Barcelona.

Ten years later, the new generation are all on the grid with Rossi.

Almost all of them, that is.

There's another very fast one coming none of them know about yet.

1997, Cervera, Spain.

Marc Marquez gets a motorcycle for Christmas.

He is three years old.

Casey Stoner stunned Valentino Rossi and everybody else in 2007,

his second year in MotoGP.

The Australian didn't just beat Rossi to the world title that year,

he wiped the floor with him,

taking ten victories to the Italian's four.

Yamaha then signed Jorge Lorenzo as their second rider for 2008.

It was a statement. Rossi was the past.

Lorenzo was the future.

In 2010, the 23-year-old rode a perfect season.

He finished every race, took nine wins and seven podiums

and scored more points than anybody in history.

I saw it when he was five.

It was impressive how he could ride

beyond logic, beyond the laws of physics almost.

When you see that in a child

you know there is great potential

to go very far in this sport.

He had it and other things besides.

He's very stubborn. He's very hard-working.

He sticks at thngs until he achieves them.

He's a non-conformist. A perfectionist.

And of all that together with the right circumstances

has enabled him to reach the level he's now at.

Dani Pedrosa excelled on the smaller bikes,

winning three titles.

In MotoGP, the diminutive Spaniard finished second to Stoner in 2007

and second again to Lorenzo in 2010,

pushing Rossi down to third in the championship standings.

With Valentino Rossi in apparent decline at the age of 31,

Italy is looking for a new MotoGP hero.

Enter Marco Simoncelli.

I took him to ride mini bikes.

I didn't take him to piano classes.

He loved it. It was easy.

The first race, he fell three times. He didn't win.

But he learned fast.

All of them, I've seen all his races.

Little by little, with difficulty, with many concerns,

we got where he wanted to be.

From his determination and the way he rode

we always knew he would be great.

Me and his mum.

Racing in the intermediate class,

Simoncelli took six victories in 2008

and clinched the world title in the tropical heat of Malaysia.

Marco, how does that sound, to be world champion?