Fatal...

...Fall

The world mourns the passing of a potential world champion with the death of Marco Simoncelli in a fatal accident during the MotoGP at the Sepang International circuit yesterday. The accident happened in round two when Simoncelli of San Carlo Gresini team, lost control of his bike and fell into the path of two other riders.

Colin Edwards of Yamaha Tech 3' team and Valentino 'The Doc' Rossi on a Ducati machine could not avoid the collision which saw Simoncelli losing his helmet. The former suffered a dislocated shoulder as the result from the collision.

Simoncelli was pronounced dead at around 5pm after efforts to resuscitate him failed. Initially the MotoGP race was red flagged and it was eventually cancelled due to safety reasons. Fans who were unaware of the severity of the incident vented their anger at the cancellation but orders were restored once the news of the fatality filtered down.

The death was the first to have occurred at the Sepang circuit and also the first in a MotoGP race since Daijiro Kato's fatal accident during the 2003 Japanese Grand Prix. However, at last year's San Marino Grand Prix another fatal accident happened that saw another Japanese ride, Showa Tomizawa losing his life.

The Simoncelli tragedy overshadowed the achievement of Malaysian rider Zulfahmi Khairuddin who recorded his best ever finish this season by finishing seventh in the 125cc category. It was the best achievement by a Malaysian rider in a decade and gave the young rider 30 points, propelling him to 17th place in the 125cc Championship.

The Banting born rider could achieve his target of finishing in the top 15 in the final round at Valencia if he could  get a positive result there.


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