James Toesland

James Toesland - Born in Doncaster 5th October 198

Won best newcomer in 100cc inter youth series 1992, followed by junior road race champion in 1995.

1997 In his 1st year of Britsh supersport he finshed 3rd at the sametime as winning the CB500 championship.

Quickly elevated on to the world stage in world supersports finishing 18th and 11th overall

he was back in the uk for British superbikes in 2000 riding for paul birds vimto sponsored Honda VTR where despite missing 4 races due to injury he still finished 12th overall, and was quickly snapped up by GSE Racing in 2001 and into world superbikes where he would stay for 7 years.

on the GSE Ducati in 1st year he finished 13th ,in 2002 he was 7th with a best finish or 3rd ,the boy was getting better and better .

2003 James got his 1st world superbike win at Oschersleben, finished 3rd in points with a total of 9 podiums and his 1st super pole.

2004 James was crowned world champion making history as the youngest person ever to win the championship at the age of 23 with 3 wins and 19 other podiums in 22 races.

On the factory Ducati it went down to the last race of the season at Magney Cours where it was between Toesland and Regis Laconi also on a factory Ducati 999r FO4 . Toesland won the first race and finishing ahead of Laconi in the 2nd race was enough to give him a 9 point win and the title.

With 1 more year at Ducati he finished 4th in the title race.

2006 he switched to Honda and the Renkate Team replacing Chris Vermulan who got the move to MotoGP ,Toesland finishing 2nd

He was offered a ride in MotoGP by the D’antin Ducati satellite team but as they hadn’t performed well in recent years he turned them down not wanting to ride a bike that wasn’t competative

2007 Toesland cuts it fine again winning his second World Superbike Championship, with the HANNspree Ten Kate Honda team … Scored eight wins, a total of 14 podiums and two poles in 23 races, winning the championship by two points over Noriyuki Haga, 415-413 making it hard work again in the last race of the season. Haga did all he could finishing 1st in both races but so did James finishing 6th enough to move to MotoGP as reigning superbike world Champion.

Now in his 1st year at MotoGP is arguably Rookie of the year having never laid eyes on half the tracks and learning them off the Playstaion and still managing to qualify and finish well ahead of some of the more experienced MotoGP riders although he has been criticised by Vermulan and Stoner about aggressive overtaking moves. James has played it down saying that they are “firm but fair”. At the end of the day thats his job to overtake when he can.

James is an accomplished Pianist, he played for guests in the paddock at Barcelona but also plays in the band “Crash” and in 2008 at Donnington Friday night before his home GP he will be playing live at Starkeys Bar.

(Profile by Ausinanas)