Mattia Pasini

Born in Rimini, Pasini participated in his first race at the age of 9.

After several successful years in the Italian and European championships, he made his 125cc world championship debut in 2004 as the teammate of Roberto Locatelli. He finished his first season in the 15th place overall, and earned the rookie of the year award. His best results were a 3rd place in Qualifying and a 7th place in the Malaysian Grand Prix.

The following year Pasini was running in the lead in most of the races and won the Chinese and Catalan Grands Prix. He finished the season in fourth place overall. In 2006 Pasini finished fourth overall once again, having won the Italian Grand Prix and the German Grand Prix.

The 2007 season started very badly as Pasini suffered from motorcycles malfunctions early in the year. That lowered his chances of winning the championship. Despite having four wins, one more than the championship leader Gábor Talmácsi and as many as the runner-up Héctor Faubel, Pasini ended the year in fifth place.

In 2008, Pasini rode in the 250cc class for Polaris World Aprilia team. He gained his first 250cc victory in the opening round of the season during the Qatar Grand Prix and secured three more podium finishes in the first five rounds. However, he failed to maintain such form and finished no higher than fifth in the remaining races. He finished the season 8th overall and was the rookie of the year.

2009 Pasini was victorious at Mugello, but generally struggled to match the frontunners.

In 2009 he got a chance to test a Ducati MotoGP bike for Pramac Racing in order to evaluate him as a replacement for Mika Kallio who in turn replaced Casey Stoner at Ducati works team.[1] After the test however, it was decided he would not be racing for Pramac in 2009.[2]

Prior to the Portuguese Grand Prix in Pasini was forced to find a new team due to issues with Team Toth ability to pay for the leasing of bikes from Aprilia. This led to Daniel Epp assisting Pasini in financing the lease of bikes for the remainder of the season under the banner of Team Globalgest. The team acquired all of Pasini's mechanics from Toth and raced from the Emmi – Caffe Latte teams garage for the remainder of the season.[3]

In January 2012, it was announced that Pasini was going to make the step up to MotoGP with the Speed Master team,[4] replacing Anthony West, as he could not acquire the funds to retain the ride. He rode an Aprilia ART CRT bike. At Assen he achieved his best result with 10th place.

In 2016, Pasini made a full-time return to Moto2, racing a Kalex for Italtrans Racing. He closed the season in eleventh place in championship, having scored 72 points.

For 2020, Pasini was an italian commentator for the Moto2 and Moto3 classes, before stepping in as a replacement driver for Red Bull KTM Ajo in the 2020 Emilia Romagna and Rimini's Coast motorcycle Grand Prix. He took Jorge Martin's bike and finished in 16th place, just one tenth of a second behind last-place scorer Stefano Manzi.

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)