2009 season review: Mika Kallio

Mika Kallio made the step up to the premier class in 2009 on the Ducati of the Pramac team, and his debut season in MotoGP ended with the Rookie of the Year title.

A promising start was made by Kallio with back-to-back eighth-placed finishes in Qatar and Japan, where he qualified in 10th and 17th place respectively on the grid, but there were to be five crashes throughout his season.

The first two of those came at Jerez and Le Mans as Kallio suffered consecutive DNFs, and the third was quick to follow.

A lowside at Assen resulted in a nasty finger injury for Kallio and he missed the race at Laguna Seca, before coming back to ride in Germany and then finish 10th at Donington. His form was good enough to encourage Ducati Marlboro to bring Kallio in during Casey Stoner’s three-race absence, and the Finn started his short stint as a substitute for the factory team at Brno.

His first race aboard the factory Desmosedici GP9 at Brno ended abruptly however, as a crash with Marco Melandri cut short his Grand Prix. The next two were positive however, as Kallio finished eighth in Indianapolis from 15th on the grid, and then achieved his best result of the season at Misano with seventh.

Returning to Pramac for Estoril, Kallio again crashed, but top-ten finishes in the final three races in Australia, Malaysia and Valencia brought about a positive end to his season and he will look to build on 15th place overall in 2010 as he lines up alongside Aleix Espargaró.