Alex Hofmann
Alexander "Alex" Hofmann ( born May 25, 1980 in Mindelheim ) is a former German motorcycle racer.
It starts on the basis of his youth model Loris Capirossi with the start number 66
Alex Hofmann is the first German motorcycle racer, who succeeded in his first year on a 250 cc motorcycle road racing in the same year German Master (10 races, 10 wins) and to be European champions.
Career
Alex Hofmann made his debut as a wildcard rider with a 14th place in the Grand Prix of Germany in 1997 on a 125 cc Yamaha in the motorcycle world championship. In 1998 he won both the German and the European Championship in the 250 cc class. In the quarter-liter Grand Prix of Germany Hofmann was tenth in this year.
From the 1999 season until the 2001 season, he started initially on TSR Honda and later on permanent Aprilia in the 250cc World Championship. The twelfth place overall in 2001 was about his best result.
In the 2002 season, Alex Hofmann made his debut in the Red Bull Yamaha WCM team as a reserve driver for the Australian Garry McCoy in the MotoGP class. In the rest of the season, he replaced the injured at two races Loris Capirossi in the West Honda Pons team of Sito Pons.
From the 2003 season until the 2005 season started Hofmann in the MotoGP class for the Kawasaki factory team. In 2006 and 2007 he went to Ducati for the D' Antin MotoGP team.
In the 2007 season Hofmann showed initially good performance, the rainy Grand Prix of France with five rank he achieved the best result in his World Cup career. On July 20, 2007 in training for the U.S. Grand Prix at Laguna Seca, he was blameless rammed by the French Sylvain Guintoli and retired while an open fracture of the left hand. Hofmann had to be hospitalized and undergo surgery for three hours. After several weeks of break, he returned to the race back in San Marino, but was unable to repeat his good results of the first half of the season.
At the Grand Prix of Portugal, on September 16 2007, Hofmann had due to a problem on the bike from the pit lane start and then drove behind the field. After a few laps he put his machine on the grounds that he could not be motivated to fight the last positions in the box from. Then he was still fired on the night of D' Antin team refusal to work. He then sued for reinstatement in order to end the 2007 season still can. The matter was eventually settled out of court. Alex Hofmann dropped the suit and in return, the team agreed to the statements regarding the refusal to work into perspective.
After there was no room available for Hofmann in the 2008 season on a MotoGP bike, Aprilia hired him as a development and test driver for the new RSV4 superbike. With appropriate services was planned that he should start as Aprilia factory rider in the Superbike World Championship in 2009. This hope was taken away from him but, as the Japanese Shin'ya Nakano, who moved from the MotoGP class in the World Superbike Championship, was awarded a contract with Aprilia in 2009 and started on the side of Max Biaggi for the Italians. The German continued to be a test driver for the manufacturer of Noale.
Since the beginning of the 2009 season, Alex Hofmann also works at the TV station Sport 1 as a co- commentator and later as a presenter and interviewer in the Motorcycle World Championship broadcasts.
He speaks German, English, Spanish, Italian and French fluently.