And once again 12 months have past and another year is behind us. A lot can happen in a year, and for Öhlins, it sure has. Ups and downs, twists and turns and of course plenty of juicy highlights. Let’s kick off this year with a blast from the past and look at everything that happened under 2018.
Monster Energy Supercross
Let’s start by heading over to the warm, dusty tracks of Daytona. High energy and packed crowds filled with roaring fans – we’re obviously talking about the Monster Energy Supercross.
For the first time since 2012 Öhlins had the honor to podium with the great effort and performance by Luke Renzland. He performed the best he’s ever done with a new personal record finish in the 250SX East/West Showdown. Renzland took home the title for being the top-scoring Yamaha and finished the race in a strong third place. With great confidence, talent, and the precision of our TTX shock absorbers, Renzland became the star of the show.
Grand Slam at Moto GP
You shouldn’t brag, but sometimes you can’t help it. This year we were the leading suspension dealer for Moto GP, taking home the wins in all three classes – Moto GP, Moto 2, and Moto 3.
For Moto GP we had the man, the myth, and the legend Marc Marquez who took home the win yet again, and who now sits on a total of seven Moto GP wins. Is it a coincidence that he happened to use our suspensions during his wins? We’ll leave that up to you to decide.
Let’s move on to Moto 2, where the suspension power of Öhlins took home the win together with the skills of Francesco Bagnaia. This young talent has already accomplished a previous win at Grand Prix and have podiumed at Le Mans, to name a few of his accomplishments.
As the icing on the cake, because what better way to celebrate a grand slam? – We took home the win at Moto 3 as well. Jorge Martin, the 20-year old speed breeze started of in 2015 with his first Grand Prix race where he scored 45 points. Not bad for a rookie season. Fast forward three years, and he has now taken home the crown for Moto 3.The future is only looking bright for this young talent.
Something we can state with confidence is that Moto GP has pretty good taste when it comes to suspension technology.
Supersport 300
One of the years most bad ass highlight is definitely the win of Ana Carrasco. She wrote history as she, as the first female ever to win the FIM Supersport 300 World Championship. Carrasco claimed the first spot riding a DS jr Kawasaki with Öhlins suspensions to beautifully compliment it. The 21-year old showed the boys how it’s done, making sure she’s someone to keep an extra eye on out on the track for the future to come.
UCI World Tour Champions
With 0.2 seconds Loic Bruni took home the UCI World Tour Championship for the third time. He took on the bumpy tracks with the precision of Öhlins TTX22 rear shock absorbers. Bruni have made an impression from the first time he raced. In 2012, still being a rookie he took his podium, and as the years past he has only gotten better – and he’s definitely got himself the best shock absorbers to help him get the job done.
Here at Öhlins we are so excited for the year ahead of us. We have a lot of product drops for you guys, more races to win and a fresh start to get out there and kick up the dirt.